earticle

영어

Thomas King is one of the best-known contemporary Native writers in Canada helping provide Canadian literature with a wide range of cultural backgrounds. His second novel, Green Grass, Running Water deals with several stories about the First Nations people in a Blackfoot community in Alberta, Canada. Among the stories, the life of Lionel is especially worthy of notice with three mistakes that he had made from his childhood to middle-age. The mistakes show that he has imitated white people by disguising his Indian identity with clothes he wears, an effect of colonialist ideology which promotes white supremacy over colored people. His mistakes of the past have a lasting influence on his presence and are related to white people, which justifies the presence and role of trickster characters in the novel. With the help of the trickster, who serves as a saviour or healer in Native American mythology and literature, Lionel successfully finds his right place and purpose in his life by restoring his identity as a Blackfoot Indian. His life suggests the question of the unhealed past and its lasting influence on the present reflecting the fate of the whole aboriginal people. This analysis takes a closer look at how Lionel's masking and unmasking is portrayed as a process of healing and restoration for the whole indigenous community.