Analysis Of Green Grass Running Water By Thomas King

Colonial Companions: Marriage in Green Grass, Running Water

Many schools of both post-colonial and feminist thought recognize the integral relationship between the two concepts. Post-colonial novelist Thomas King’s female characters often remove themselves from positions of subservience, maintaining the autonomy and equality also hoped for but oft denied in First Nation’s relations with colonizing forces. This paper will explore depictions of marriage in Thomas King’s novel Green Grass, Running Water and how rejections of hierarchical male-female relationships, specifically by female characters, parallel and aid rejections of cultural oppression of First Nations, establishing a new basis for equality. Particularly, Alberta and Latisha each

experience relationships easily interpreted as representations of colonialist domination and reject traditional gendered expectations to meet their individual goals, drawing parallels to King’s revision of the accepted narrative of colonial oppression. The behaviour of these characters when faced with subjugated roles demonstrate the intimate relationship between the deconstruction of sexism and colonialism, and the desire for a future in which colonialist cultural supremacy is replaced with community and respect for identity.
Despite tradition defining these roles as inseparable, the character of Alberta Frank simultaneously desires to be a mother, a creative and powerful role, while seeking to avoid her loss of autonomy in marriage. Alberta sees independence as being of paramount importance; she is in a relationship with both Lionel and Charlie in a bid to preserve their relational distance, as the presence of one necessarily limits the dependence of the other. When weighing her options regarding how to conceive a child Alberta considers marrying either Charlie or Lionel “obscene”, however this is understandable considering her failed marriage to Bob, who sought to relegate her to housewife, and the domestic abuse her family experienced at the hands of her father Amos (King 65). The challenges faced by women who create their identity outside of norms is displayed in the disjoint conversation between Alberta and the nurse at the fertility clinic, in which single women undergoing the process of artificial insemination is disallowed, and doubly so foreign to the nurse she continues to remind Alberta of the necessary presence of her husband in the interview to evaluate their mental health and ‘morals’ despite Alberta’s clarity in the non-existence of such a man. King uses the narrative disconnect between the two conversations to exemplify society’s complete refusal to accept that a young woman would wish to deviate from the norm of the nuclear family.
The struggle of Alberta to forge her own identity outside of cultural expectations also closely mirror the struggle of First Nations to form a modern cultural identity within the confines of colonialist-imposed values. Alberta’s absolute fear in loss of autonomy in marriage, even comparing it to being a passenger on a plane subject to the potential damages of “nameless, faceless man… completely oblivious to impending disasters” is reminiscent of the removal of control of both land and culture First Nations experienced under colonialism (King 85). Christina A. S. McKay explores the closely intertwined creation of women’s identities and First Nations cultural identities in her MA thesis, explaining further that female characters in an assertion of autonomy closely mirror the struggle of the marginalized to create their own identity and “overthrow the power of white western male sign maker” (McKay 52). Judeo-Christian beliefs regarding sexuality and the necessary dependency of a woman upon a man provide the influence of a western “sign maker” for Alberta, and it is the trickster figure of Coyote that finally impregnates her, revising this standard on First Nations terms, rather than those of traditionally colonialist morality. The aid Coyote provides Alberta is appropriate within Coyote’s role as the provider of the magical alteration of the narrative, as Coyote’s “irreverent willingness to invert, reverse, and undermine” is what eventually allows Alberta to challenge the norms associated with marriage and families (Davidson, Walton, and Andrews 173-174). Alberta’s refusal to accept the subservient position of the wife closely mirrors Latisha’s struggle for freedom and respect within and following her marriage to George Morningstar.
King extensively establishes Latisha and George’s marriage as a metaphor for the history of colonization.

Their relationship, as one between a white man and a Native woman, is heavy in societal and historical imbalances of power in not only gender relations but also relationships between colonialists and First Nations; McKay explains that Latisha is a figure “doubly colonized” as she is “a Native married to an abusive white, and a woman married to an abusive man” (58). George Morningstar also has multiple ties, including his origin in Michigan, name, and signature jacket to his being a reincarnation of American General George Custer who was responsible for perpetuation of governmental violence in placing First Nations on reserves in the American Indian Wars of the 19th century (Flick 146,

155).
George’s treatment of Latisha displays the duplicity of colonialist views of First Nations as he attempts to inaccurately appropriate First Nations identities and simultaneously assert his dominance as both an American and a man, further connecting him to the position of the colonizer.

His desire to honeymoon at the Sun Dance, but subsequent insistence on his superior theories of tepee construction exemplifies this hypocritical admiration and rooted perception of superiority (King 335-338). After a few months of marriage George begins to lecture Latisha on the virtues of America, even rejecting multiple First Nations historical figures and leaders in battles against colonialist forces as “great military men of North America” in his bid to prove supremacy (King 157). Davidson, Walton, and Andrews suggest in their book Border Crossings that it is this blend of admiration and superiority that gives rise to George’s nickname for Latisha: “Country”, as if she is a land mass that he, the white man, must conquer (Davidson, Walton, and Andrews 165). The metaphors for colonialism presented in this relationship, especially the violence perpetuated in the colonialists claims to the land itself, grow even more acute when George becomes abusive following Latisha’s dismissal of George’s pride after he receives a fringed jacket reminiscent of General Custer as inheritance from a ‘relative’. In this multitude of connections George’s role as a symbol for the violent colonialist powers in

history is stressed, and his obvious personal acceptance of some of the negative perception of First Nations as handed down by these ‘relatives’ is displayed in his privilege.
Latisha’s relationship with George as symbolic representation of colonialist violence, and Alberta’s struggles as representative of cultural oppression, make their following freedom and success a vital part of King’s revision of the narrative in Green Grass, Running Water. Latisha’s business, The Dead Dog Café, a restaurant run by a native woman that not only parodies inaccurate and obscene First Nations stereotypes, but profits off of them, exists as a powerful reclamation of her cultural identity in a light-hearted fashion. Latisha’s restaurant is patronized not only by tourists who come for the novelty of the premise, but also by a small local clientele who perceive the ironies, in this way Latisha has created an equalizing intercultural space. Alberta’s pregnancy echoes this sentiment, as with the help of Coyote she is free to pursue her conceptions of a family outside of norms imposed by colonialist forces that previously impeded her, with the support of her community instead of a traditional marriage. It is in the communities that surround Alberta and Latisha, and not in their individual marriages, that these women achieve their goals. McKay theorizes that Native women are best suited to deconstruct oppression as they can do so on “Native terms”, promoting both equality and community as “the Native understanding of difference is grounded in a moral code which values both community and personal autonomy” (McKay 103). The personal success of Alberta and Latisha demonstrate that the hierarchical nature of the relationship between identities, both in gender and race, that was necessitated by colonialist values can be tampered with productively, rather than with the intent of a reversal of dominance.
Alberta and Latisha demonstrate the struggles and triumphs of women in the face of multiple societal pressures and preconceived notions as they challenge moral standards of families and marriage, especially as they exist in relation to their First Nations identities. Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water employs powerful symbolism, allusion and dichotomy to tell the stories of characters who bear not only the burden of subjugation as women, but also the cultural subjugation of colonialism as a whole. In this nuanced presentation of both of these systems of oppression, and their dismantling, King suggests the non-necessity of hierarchies imposed by colonialists and displays the capability of the individual to find new forms of relation based in community and autonomy.

Works Cited
A. S. McKay, Christina. "'And that One Takes a Big Bite of One of those Nice Red Apples': Portraits of Native Women in Thomas King's Green Grass, Running Water and Medicine River." MA Thesis. Dalhousie University, 1998. Theses Canada. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.
Davidson, Arnold E., Jennifer Courtney Elizabeth Andrews, and Priscilla L. Walton. “The Comic Dimensions of Gender, Race, and Nation: King's Contestatory Narratives”. Border Crossings: Thomas King's Cultural Inversions. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 16 Nov. 2015.
Flick, Jane. "Reading Notes for Thomas King's Green Grass, Running Water." Canadian Literature 161/162 (Summer/ Autumn 1999): 140 -172. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.
King, Thomas. Green Grass, Running Water. Toronto: HarperCollins, 2007. Print.