Green Grass, Running Water

In the novel Green Grass, Running Water, Thomas King uses many Biblical and cultural allusions. On page 235 he made an allusion toward the Star of Bethlehem. He depicts Babo and Dr. Hovaugh traveling towards a point of light in the horizon, a star in the morning sky symbolizing their final destination on there way to find the four old indians. Another allusion is the Lone Ranger. Lone Ranger is one of the old indians that has a goal of fixing the world and its change, but what makes it ironic is that the Lone Ranger was a pop culture icon in old western movies, a heroic cowboy that saves people from the bad indians.

Clifford Sifton was the Minister of the Interior of Canada from 1896-1905. He was responsible for bringing the change to the interior provinces of Canada. In the novel King has recreated Sifton as a government official that is working in Alberta to run a hydro-dam project that is being prevented by a local indian. This is an interesting allusion because in real life he start the change of the native culture and now he is being depicted as actually physical changing it by taking away homes to build the dam. One of the allusions on page 416 is about the birth of Jesus, Coyote is being scorned upon for making mistakes and one that he admits to is giving "that" lady a baby, which led to the Christian religion. On page 407 there is an allusion towards Columbus's ship. The old indians use a red car, a blue car, and a white car to break the dam to fix the change that has happened. The cars were depicted as sailing towards the dam. It is an allusion because red, white and blue are the colours symbolized by colonialism which brought about the change in the western world and now they are using those coloured cars to correct the change.

In the novel Eli Stands Alone is fighting over his house with Clifford Sifton because Sifton wants to tear it down to run a dam, but Eli does not want this to happen. He has been offered a great deal to move out but he wont budge.

" Eli could no longer remember what he had in mind when he moved into the cabin, could remember only the emotion he felt when Sifton told him that they were going to tear the cabin down." p. 263.

This shows that Eli is tried of all the stuff that has happened to his people over time and now he want to make a stand. He does not really even remember what he wants with the house, he is just done with being pushed around.

In the novel Lionel Red Dog is struggling to get his life in order because so far he is over 40 and going nowhere fast.

"Life, lionel mused as he felt his chest slide on top of his stomach, had become embarrassing. His job was embarrassing. His gold blazer was embarrassing. His car was embarrassing. Norma was right. Alberta wasn't about to marry an embarrassment." p.239

This shows how self aware Lionel is and how he has not done anything to improve his life lately, you can tell that he wants to change but it is as if he is lazy.

Coyote is quite the trickster. He is kind of depicted as a god but a bad one, a god that is not aware of how the stuff he does affects the world around him.

"'The last time you fooled around like this ,' said Robinson Crusoe,' the world got very wet.'

'And we had to start all over again,' said Hawkeye.

'I didn't do anything,' says Coyote. 'I jut sang a little.'

'Oh, boy," said the Lone Ranger." p. 416

This passage shows how Coyote is the trickster he is said to be. It shows how he started the flood from Noah's Arch and that all he thought he did was sang a little.

Three Day Road Blog

In the novel Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden the scene were Xavier and Elijah are told to go out into no man's land to frisk the famous german sniper that Xavier just had killed is a very key scene. It is were the tension between the two best friends starts to build on the front. Elijah who loves attention and acts as if killing the enemy is a game and that he is invincible becomes very jealous of how he did not kill the famous sniper, but Xavier did. This jealousy also shows how all the killing is slowly corrupting Elijah making him a monster.

McCaan tells Elijah that he most take Corporal Thompson out into no man's land with us tonight to frisk the dead man.

This bit of news angers Elijah, but he doesn't let it show. "Yes, Sergeant," he says. "Yes, Sergeant."

I can see that he'd rather go out alone. He'd rather leave Thompson in the trench, and me too, for that matter. Elijah like to go out of the trench at night and do his own patrols. Just him and the mud. He'd get court-martialled if Breech knew. But he must take me out with him tonight. The kill was mine after all, wasn't it? My first as a sniper. Elijah can't believe he didn't get the shot. He told me himself that he was more surprised than anyone.

(p.136)

This scene connects to the rest of the book by showing the start of how Elijah acts as if he is hunting on the front and how the only thing that he wants to do out there is kill fritz to raise his score and how he is willing to sneak off, risking his life just to get a couple of kills. This problem Elijah has slowly consumes him. He gets to a point were nothing will be able to help him. He begins to scalp his enemies and keep the hair and skin as a trophy of his kill. He even ends up killing a child for no reason. As this happens Xavier notices and tries to help but it only ever make Elijah upset creating even more tension between the two of them. This leeds to where Xavier has to do the unthinkable to stop his best friends rampage.