Monthly Archives: November 2016

Pages 399-409, 2007 Edition of Green Grass, Running Water

I chose these pages because I wanted to look at the lead up to the earthquake and the flood, and the varying points of view that tell this part of the story provide a wide range of references. King’s novel is saturated with double meanings and multiple layers, and it was fascinating to discover just how much he packs into every page, every character, every moment.

Babo and Dr. Hovaugh Get on the Bus

Dr. Joe Hovaugh is, as mentioned in the lecture for this week, a reference to both Jehovah and Northrop Frye. Babo has many layers to her name, as described by Jane Flick: the barber-turned-slave-revolt-leader aboard one of Melville’s fictional ships, the San Dominick, who masquerades as the displaced captain Cereno’s servant, in order to make sure Cereno does not betray the slaves. Flick also suggests a potential connection to a Wise Man drawn to the miracle pregnancy of Mary/Alberta. In the same reading guide is the only information I could find about the West Wind bus tours, led by Ralph: as a reference to wind as procreator.

There is also the continuation of the map metaphor in this section, as Dr. Hovaugh spreads one out next to him both in the diner and on the bus. He is intent on using the map to find the Indians, as though their position is indicated somewhere on that piece of paper. As my classmate, Danielle Vernon said in her discussion of the map metaphor in the novel, “If you don’t know where you are headed, a map might help you find places, but you might still feel lost…a map is just a tool, not a solution.” Hovaugh only makes sense out of the map through his use of what is only ever referred to as “the book” (GGRW 46, 399). When looking through Flick’s reading guide, the only reference to this peculiarity is under the heading “TURNING THE CHART AS HE WENT, LITERAL, ALLEGORICAL, TROPOLOGICAL, ANAGOGIC” and describes it as Northrop Frye’s book, The Great Code. Frye’s book is about the Bible and Literature, or, as Robert Alter argues in his review, “The Bible and Archetypes.” The connection to Frye is unsurprising, however, Hovaugh’s fictional copy of the book apparently lists the instances that the Indians went missing from his institution: “They’re all in the book. Occurrences, probabilities, directions, deviations. You can look them up for yourself” (GGRW 47). Now, while I haven’t read The Great Code, I found the table of contents on Google Books, and there’s nothing there to suggest a connection to the disasters that Hovaugh is interested in. An interesting conundrum, to be sure.

Sifton and Pick Spot Some Cars on the Horizon

Clifford Sifton is the namesake of Sir Clifford Sifton, who was Federal Minister of the Interior and Superintendent of Indian Affairs in the late 1900s. He pushed for the settlement of the west, and had little to no regard for minority rights. His friend in this section, Lewis Pick, also has a namesake: Colonel Lewis Pick, who was stationed in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1943, when the city faced three successive floods. King maintains the significance of names, as can be traced throughout the novel.

Bill Bursum Sees the Cars, Too

Buffalo Bill Bursum is a reference to both Buffalo Bill, symbol of the Western Frontier, as well as the Bursum Bill of 1922. The Bursum Bill would have given non-Indians any Pueblo land they had purchased before 1920, effectively stripping Pueblos of a large portion of their land. This bill was struck down, and ultimately brought attention to the importance of Indian Rights. This section is rather short, so the only other references are to locations: Ontario, Banff, Jasper, and Montana.

Dr. Hovaugh Finds His Car

Parliament Lake is a fictional creation of Sifton’s dam. Upon researching on the internet, I could find very little on Alberta’s manmade lakes, other than Abraham Lake, but what I could find often listed only 11 manmade lakes anyway. This fictional lake can be read as a modern attempt as creating the Garden of Eden, a paradise, but it’s “a strictly Western invention with no room for Native presence” (Totter), using western technology to create it, and only being available to those who can afford a piece of land, such as Bill Bursum. The only other reference is to Babo’s Pinto, drawing the connection between the car and the plains horse, as Flick does in her guide.

Sifton and Pick Count the Cars

A Nissan, a Pinto, and a Karmann-Ghia. Alberta’s car, Babo’s car, and Dr. Hovaugh’s car all meet up to destroy the dam. Somehow, these cars are floating on the lake, “sailing”  even (GGRW 407). Flick references these cars in her reading notes, but has little to say beyond the connection between the Pinto and its horse namesake, and the irony that Dr. Hovaugh, as a religious figure, has a “white” and “convertible” car (GGRW 407).

The Indians and Coyote Visit Eli

Eli Stands Alone is, according to Flick, a reference to Elijah Harper, who opposed the Meech Lake Accord in 1990. Harper was the only Aboriginal member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba , and stood up for Indigenous rights when he realized that the Meech Lake Accord put off Indigenous voices until another round of amendments could be made. I found a video here of the CBC reporting on the occasion.

“Lionel and Latisha and Norma and Alberta and Harley and Camelot” (GGRW 408) encompass all of Eli’s family. Lionel, Latisha, Norma, and Harley all appear to be original creations of King, but there is more significance to Alberta and Camelot’s names, as both women are named for a well-known location. Alberta Frank is a reference to Frank, Alberta, the site of a rock slide tragedy at the foot of Turtle Mountain. Camelot is the name of King Arthur’s kingdom.

The Four Old Indians also make an appearance. Lone Ranger, Ishmael, Robinson Crusoe, and Hawkeye all are references to popular western figures that feature some connection to an Indigenous sidekick, such as Tonto, Queequeg, Friday, and Chingachgook, respectively. Each of the former characters takes a position of authority over the latter, to some degree. Throughout all of the novel, King takes back that power by having the Women take on the names of the heroes, and delegate the sidekick roles to the (usually white, Christian) male figures they encounter in the creation stories.

Coyote also appears briefly, as he has been following the Four Old Indians up to this point. As we have already established, Coyote is a key figure in Indigenous mythology, the power and symbolism of the deity changing depending on the different tribe’s stories. In this part of the novel, Coyote is the one who dances and sings (GGRW 409) and causes the dam to burst. Whereas the Four Old Indians probably brought the three cars to the lake (as well as Coyote), it is suggested in later pages that the cars were merely the tools implemented by the earthquake caused by Coyote to break the dam and cause the flood.

WORKS CITED

Alter, Robert. “Northrop Frye: The Great Code: The Bible and Literature. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 261 pp. $14.95.” Blake Issue Archive, vol. 17, no. 1, Summer 1983. Web. 18 Nov 2016.

“Benito Cereno (Part III).” Sparknotes, 2016. Web. 19 Nov 2016.

“Character Analysis Queequeg.” CliffsNotes, 2016. Web. 19 Nov 2016.

“Col. Lewis Pick.” Savages and Scoundrels. 2012. Web. 19 Nov 2016.

The Editors of Encyclopædia Brittanica. “Chingachgook.” Encyclopædia Brittanica, 7 May 2010. Web. 19 Nov 2016.

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canadian Literature, no. 161/162, Summer/Autumn 1999, pp. 140-172.

“Frank Slide-Turtle Mountain.” Mysteries of Canada, 2016. Web. 19 Nov 2016.

Frye, Northrop. “The Great Code: The Bible and Literature.” Collected Works of Northrop Frye, edited by Alvin A. Lee, vol. 19, University of Toronto Press, 2006. Web. 19 Nov 2016.

“History: Statehood.” New Mexico Art Museum. Web. 19 Nov 2016.

Infinity Plus One. “Relationship Between Robinson Crusoe and Friday.” FictionPress, 27 Sept 2004. Web. 19 Nov 2016.

“Meech Lake: A Vote of Protest.” CBC Player, 12 June 1990. Web. 19 Nov 2016.

“Native American Coyote Mythology.” Native-Lanuages.org, 2015. Web. 19 Nov 2016.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 3.3.” ENGL 470A: Canadian Literary Genres: Canadian Studies, 2013. Web. 18 Nov 2016.

“Sire Clifford Sifton.” Manitoba Business Hall of Fame, 2014. Web. 19 Nov 2016.

“Tonto.” The Lone Ranger Wiki. Web. 19 Nov 2016.

Totter, Eileen. “Killing John Wayne: Intertextual Revision in Green Grass, Running Water.” Georgia College Corinthian. Web. 19 Nov 2016.

Vernon, Danielle. “38.” Exploration of Canadian Literature, 10 Nov 2016. Web. 18 Nov 2016.

Something that I particularly enjoyed about reading Green Grass, Running Water was the different narrators and narrative styles that all blend together in the novel. The first person engaging with Coyote as the framing narrative, the oral style of the creation stories as told by Four Old Indians, and the third person restricted telling of the modern stories of Lionel, Alberta, and Eli. The second one is most interesting to me, because it is far less common than the others. Rather than pick a point of view and run with it, the narrator is one of the Four Old Indians, despite the fact that each time they take a turn telling their creation story, it starts with the four of them getting organized enough to start the story. They are characters in their own tales that they themselves are telling, and that stuck with me throughout the whole novel.

When I first read the Four Old Indians, I only understood two of the four cultural allusions. I assumed each one was somehow related to a portrayal of a First Nations character, but I didn’t know who Ishmael was, and the only Hawkeye I knew of was the Marvel character. To be honest, I didn’t try looking up these other two characters, partially because most of the time I was reading this while on the bus, and partially because I expected the meaning of each name to become clear as the story progressed. I got that with Ishmael, recognizing the story of the white whale, but I had never heard Hawkeye’s story before.

After finishing the novel, I Google searched a couple of references that I recognized as such, but didn’t know enough about. I read up a little more on Ishmael, primarily interested in his relationship with Queequeg. I also discovered Hawkeye is only one name of many for the character Natty Bumppo, from James Fenimore Cooper’s series, The Leatherstocking Tales. Natty Bumppo is a meeting point between the romanticized “Indian” nature and European/American civilization, much like Robinson Crusoe and the Lone Ranger.

The story from which each of these characters come exemplifies the power dynamic between the Civilized White Man and the Noble Savage. King deliberately turns this dynamic on its head by presenting the Indigenous women as the main hero character, coerced into their role by their interaction with the irrational white men in their stories. King also mixes in various European/American cultural myths: the Garden of Eden, Noah’s Ark, and Moby Dick, to name a few. Including cultural myths beyond just creation stories identifies the assumptions made about each role, and the confines within which they are forced to exist. It is only the Women who are able to break free from the boundaries of the recognizable tales, whereas the characters they encounter resist any changes with all their might. This may reflect the origins of each story; the Women come from an oral tradition, whereas the European/American cultural myths are all written literature, where change and organic evolution of stories is almost unheard of.

King’s blending of these cultural myths questions the value of an unchanging canon, and the Four Old Indians’ tales create an overall creation story of their own origins, as well as the current condition of the world, which, coincidentally, the Four Old Indians are trying to change, one story at a time. This time, the story is that of Lionel, Alberta, and Eli.

WORKS CITED

“Fenimore’s Natty Bumppo.” James Fenimore Cooper: a Literary Pioneer. American Studies at the University of Virginia. Web. 10 November 2016.

“Ishmael.” Moby Dick. Shmoop. Web. 12 November 2016.