The Role Of Identity In Thomas King's Green Grass, Running Water

Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water portrays various lives of characters intertwined by the Native American folkloric gods. Lionel Red Dog, a man turning 40 years old attempts to reconstruct his life on a better path while struggling with his identity. As a born Canadian with an Asian ethnicity, my personal reading of Lionel and Charlie’s father Portland Looking Bear highlights their struggle with identity. Although never explicitly stated, the conflicting needs of being an individual and belonging in a community suggest the impossibility of feeling included as whole in the world. The societal desire to categorize people based on appearance suggests the allowance and tolerance of ignorance. Throughout the novel, many Blackfoot characters are misidentified as other Native …show more content…
Similarly, the common assumption for any Asian-looking individual is being Chinese. In both cases, it is a generalization used because it is a standard practice. When Charlie remembers his past with his father, the reader learns the various roles Portland Looking Bear has played. These roles, though all Native Americans, consists of playing a “Sioux”, “Cheyenne”, “Kiowa”, “Apache” and a “Navaho” (King 151). There are two noteworthy observations from this example. Firstly, despite playing many ‘roles’, Portland never plays as a Blackfoot, his own tribe. Secondly, the fact Portland can play all those ‘roles’ suggest to the eyes of the white man, all tribes are all the same. The explicit refusal of white people to consider the different physical traits of these native tribes suggest their reluctance to educate themselves. Similarly, I have also faced