Gender Norms In Green Grass Running Water By Thomas King

Thomas King’s novel, Green Grass Running Water, outlines the different voices and perspectives of women, men, native people and non-natives living in Canada, we learn about the westernized culture and how we must learn to reconcile our differences and find a balance. The women in the novel teach readers about the Native view, which resists our previous understanding on colonization, gender, culture, and history; it gives readers a new view on the stories we have been told many times before. King gives readers a new understanding about the creation of earth, unlike Genesis and the perspective of the known colonizer. The creation stories in the novel are told by women, which re-identifies gender norms and discrimination against women, due to

First Woman’s creation story begins as she falls from the sky, and gets caught by a turtle, resulting in Turtle Island being created. In Genesis, the stories are told by men, with men being the hero. From that came gender norms for both men and for women, which is why men are brought up to be superior and dominant; King wants us to stretch our beliefs and forget the way of the colonizer. Intertextuality is very apparent in First Woman’s creation story, we are introduced to the bible and the story of Adam and Eve. King took a familiar story to Westernized land and changed it ever so slightly. King took the original name from the bible which was Adam, and changed it to Ahdamn, and made Eve’s name First Woman. But that is not all King does to change the story; instead of having God create everything, including Adam and Eve, he has First Woman create the word and God colonize her and Ahdamn. King makes First Woman superior to reinforce the gender roles, in Western culture gender is predetermined but in a native perspective is involuntary. King chooses to make a woman superior rather than Ahdamn in hope to reinvent the gender norms that we are so commonly subject