Green Grass Running Water Analysis

To continue on this path, later in the first chapter, the narrator, Alberta, describes a family reunion after the death of her aunt, and in this family reunion the character of King Kashpaw is dramatically introduced (Love Medicine 17). After an evening of being outspoken and over drinking, King ends up attacking his wife in the kitchen, and action which she responds to by telling him, “‘It’s them. You always get so crazy when you’re home.’” (Erdrich, Love Medicine 42) This quote suggests that there is some alternative location where King feels at place in the world, and that coming here would make him feel comfortable like he belongs; nevertheless, later in the novel, King is depicted at his own place in the city, and he seems to be equally …show more content…
While the variety of characters in the novel provide the reader with a variety of different experiences, there are some characters that present the theme of unhomliness more distinctly than others. The first of these characters is Eli Stands Alone, whose story takes place in both the modern day as well as in flashbacks to his youth (King, 178). In the flashbacks, it becomes that Eli had abandoned his Native American roots in an attempt to assimilate to white culture, but he marries a woman who romanticizes the life of Native Americans, including that of Eli (King, 182). At one point, after looking at a stereotyped image of a Native American and she tells him, “‘You’re my Mystic Warrior.’” (King, 182) This quote shows how when he, as a Native American, is doomed to be subjected to being pidgin holed into a typic ‘Native American’ ideal, meaning that he will never truly be capable of belonging in white culture, but while this inhibits him from making a home in white culture, he is rejecting his home in the Native American community (King, 225). Eli feels trapped in-between two worlds at this point in his life, and he even refers to himself as, “The Indian who couldn’t go home.” (King, 317) He did later, however, after both his wife and his mother pass away, he finally comes home and stay in order to save his mother’s house (King, 401). At the time the novel was written, Eli is in the process of attempting to save his home which the government wants to tear down in order to finish building a dam; moreover, it is in this home where he ultimately dies after the dam breaks (King, 459). So through his entire life, until his death, he was battling this lack of place in white culture, as he is never fully accepted or feels at home, but when he finally does come home he is forced to keep his home in

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