Thomas King's novel and the beginning of the Hebrew scriptures repeatedly contradict and compliment each other. He continually relates the creation story in different perspectives to Genesis- the first book of the ancient Hebrew literature. Green Grass Running Water was written by King to express his satirical skeptical view of the Christian grand narrative which guides the audience to ask themselves why are we here and how did we get here? Metafiction texts often use these questions to spark the reader's interest in the work itself. King uses Coyote, a storyteller and trickster in Indigenous mythology, to portray the questions above in a horatian satire manner. He compares the creation story from the Indigenous mythological view and the Christian …show more content…
Again, this is a reference to how Coyotes must continue to maintain their oral tradition and share their story. King is being satirical in using Coyote to reference the Bible in this way to make these “things” seem wrong when people do believe in these events. In Green Grass Running Water, Jesus is known as “Young Man Walking on Water”. King paints Jesus in a prideful way, sharing how he would “rather do it himself” and since Old Woman seems to have found the fishing boat first she asks if “that is the boat you’re looking for.” he replies with “not if you saw it first” (King 349). Old Woman is told that there are “Christian rules” and Coyote says, “I love Christian rules” (King 350). Satirically, this is how the “Christian rules” (King 350) are portrayed in a negative, selfish, and prideful way, but the main storyteller loves them, or so he says. King uses this hyperbole from Coyote to demonstrate the comments as being satirical towards Jesus. Young Man Walking on Water goes to save them and shares how he needs to do it by himself and Coyote exclaims how it is going to be “a really good trick” (King 350) in reference to how Coyote is the trickster throughout the entirety of the book who continually gets the realities of life mixed up and