Women In Thomas King's 'Green Grass, Running Water'

This power that Agnes has gained with the recognition and identification with what is wild inside her is what has enabled her to face what is to come after killing the bear, for the incident has not ended yet. The Frenchman knew that it was Agnes who killed the bear and took its fur, which was a rare color of a bear. He, along with his gun-armed men, went to Agnes house, where she lived alone with her mother. (They lived alone because men abandoned their houses to places that have not yet been destroyed, leaving their women and children behind, as a consequence of the European destruction, a situation that will be further studied in ch. 2). Dora-Rouge narrates: "We were just women there. We had no men to protect us. They wanted the fur." (47)

King narrates: "It all started when the waters rose, says Old Coyote. The water rose and we had to get into Noah's canoe." (GGRW 147) Changing Woman, the protagonist of this part of the novel, admires this attitude of Noah and says: "That was nice of him." (147) However, Old Coyote, noticing that Changing Woman misunderstood, corrects himself and tells her that it was Noah's wife and children that asked him to take the animal on board and begged him not to throw them away. Old Coyote explains: "Oh, no. He tried to leave us behind, says Old Coyote. Then he tried to throw us into the water. But his wife and children said no, no, no. Don’t throw all our friends into the water." (147) Here, King expresses the blunt truth of how hard-hearted can the patriarchal man get. And to contrast him, King sets the example of his compassionate wife and kids, who consider the animals as friends, and treat them as equals. However, having seen neither woman nor children on board, Changing Woman wonders: "Wife? ... Children?" (147), then she is faced with the horrible news: "Noah threw them into the water instead, says Old Coyote. It's the rules." (147) And when she askes about what kind of rules are these that legislates the killing of animals, women, and even children: "What rules?", she is answered "Christian rules" (146), indicating Patriarchal rules that men deeply believe in and are strictly governed by. Then her answer is: "We got to get rid of those rules," (147) indicating the fight women are going to wage against all patriarchal dichotomies and its subordinating and exploiting practices of women and animals alike, through the means of ecofeminism thought, of