King and His Critics: Indigenous versus Non-Indigenous Commentary on Green Grass, Running Water Natasha Borden College

There are marked differences between the critiques of Thomas King's novel Green Grass Running Water which were written for an Indigenous audience and those which were not. The main differences are in the focus and worldview of the critiques. Those which were written for Indigenous magazine articles focus on the power of stories, re-visioning the systematic oppression of Aboriginal people, and the assumption of superiority by colonizing cultures. The critiques which were written for the non-Indigenous audience focus on the environmental impact, and politics, of colonial culture, as well as discuss the oral and written traditions as if they were diametrically opposed to one another.

The critique by James Cox, which is printed in American Indian Quarterly, emphasizes the ideas of annihilation, conquest, and the survival of Native Americans. He writes that "one of the major components of European and European North American storytelling traditions about colonialism is the plot that culminates in a conquest of the Americas...[and that] the authors of these stories frequently create Native characters in order to annihilate them in their imaginations and in the texts". Not only do these European authors create characters to annihilate...