“So [Sula] watched her mother’s face and the face of the men when they opened the pantry door and made up her own mind” (44). In Toni Morrison’s book Sula, Sula is a girl without any men in her life except the ones her mother has sex with in the pantry. She has no idea how a normal woman in society is supposed to treat men. Because she has no male role models, Sula grows up thinking men are just for sex.
Sula grows up without any men to look up to. Hannah, Sula’s mom, “married…Rekus who died when…Sula was about three” (41). Without a father around, Sula lives with “a constant stream of boarders” (30). The only man that sticks around at the Peace house is Tar Baby. And while he is “a beautiful, slight, quiet man,” (39) he is “intent solely on drinking himself to death” (40). Sula has no examples of what a good man is, or how she should behave around them.
The only relationships Sula sees are the sexual ones between Hannah and her lovers. “Hannah simply refused to live without the attention of a man, and after Rekus’ death had a steady sequence of lovers, mostly the husbands of her friends and neighbors” (42). Yet Hannah’s reputation is not damaged. On the contrary, “The men…never gossiped about her” (44) and the women felt like “she was complimenting [them]…by wanting their husbands” (115). Sula gets the idea that it’s okay to have sex with anyone, even married people, from watching her mother and the Bottom’s reaction to her.
Sula uses the ideas she learns in her childhood and translates them into adult actions. Just as her mother did, “[Sula] went to bed with men as frequently as she could. It was the only place where she could find what she was looking for” (122). Sula uses sex for her own pleasure without caring about the men she sleeps with. The one man she does feel something for, Ajax, turns out to someone she doesn’t know and even makes her question everything in her life. “I have known nothing ever at all since the one thing I wanted was to know his name so how could he help but leave me since he was making love to a woman who didn’t even know his name…It’s just as well he left” (136). Sula stops caring about Jude just like she doesn’t mind what the people of the Bottom think. Unlike her mother, “the men gave her the final label…said she was guilty of the unforgivable thing…Sula slept with white men” (112). And “the fury she created in the women of the town was incredible…Sula was trying [their husbands] out and discarding them” (115). Most of these views come after Sula has sex with an important man in Nel’s life.
When Sula comes back to the Bottom after leaving for college she visits her best friend Nel who is now married. Not long after her initial return, Sula sleeps with Nel’s husband Jude. While this action damages Nel and Sula’s relationship, Sula “had no thought at all of Nel pain…They had always shared the affection of other people” (119). Because of the roles she sees both genders play during her childhood, she doesn’t understand the roles society expects from her. How could she, “having had no intimate knowledge of marriage, having lived in a house with women who thought all men available” (119)? Sula’s views on men in her adult life are that they are good for sex because that is all she knows.
Sula, like any child, follows the example of the adults in her life. Because of this, Sula does not know that men, even ones married to her friends, are there for anything but sex. While her friendship with Nel is harmed, Sula stays true to herself and her childhood beliefs. Toni Morrison wants to show the reader that having a man or not in a girl’s childhood affects her entire life.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Chicken Little
Chicken Little was walking down the streets of Medallion, near Eva Peace’s house. It was a huge house with people constantly going in and out. As the little boy stuck his dirty finger up his even dirtier nose, he looked up and then scurried away so the scary woman with one leg wouldn’t see him. Right then one of the deweys through one of Tar Baby’s empty bottles at the little boy and hit him right on the head.
“Gosh darnit!” Chicken Little thought. “We’re so close to Heaven, it’s rainin’ on us.”
“Heaven is fallin’! Heaven’s a fallin’!” Chicken shouted. He practically toppled over Mrs. Jackson.
“Child, what are you screaming ‘bout?” the old lady asked, chewing on a piece of ice.
“Heaven’s fallin’. It knocked me o’er the head. Bottom’s gonna turn into Heaven.”
“Well, I’ll be” Mrs. Jackson murmured. She shook her head and began to walk away. “We could probably do with a bit more Heaven down here anyway.”
Heartened that Mrs. Jackson seemed to somewhat get what he was saying, Chicken Little began running towards the riverbank. His bare feet tossed up more dirt with each step as he increased speed. Not watching where he was going, he tripped on a rock and fell flat on his face. As he slowly picked himself off the ground, his eyes traveled all the way up to meet those of his older brother.
“Where ya headed brother?” Albert asked.
“Nowhere…” Chicken Little muttered. “I hafta tell everyone Heaven’s fallin’.”
“What did you say?”
“Heaven’s falling! It hit me in the noggin!”
“You an idiot! Heaven ain’t fallin’ down on nobody. Now git outta here ‘fore I tell Mama ‘bout your crazy talk. Or maybe I’ll just knock ya into Heaven right now,” Albert threatened, picking up a stone from the ground.
Heeding his brother’s warning, Chicken continued on his path toward the river. He ventured down to the lower bank to play in the water. After unbuttoning his knickers to go for a swim, he heard voices from above. He buttoned back up and started up the riverbank. There he spotted Nel and Sula gazing over the water. He stopped when they saw him and picked his nose. Nel yelled at him, but Sula quieted her.
Sula. Despite the strange fox over her eye, she was always kind and helpful to little Chicken. She even let him climb a tree.
“Hey, Sula. I think I can reach Heaven. It’s fallin’ down ya know.”
“How do you know that?”
“Well it hit me smack on the head.”
Sula flashed her big white teeth. “Alright Chicken, Heaven’s falling.” Looking into Sula’s eyes, Chicken knew he everything was going to be okay.
Back on the ground, Sula “picked [Chicken] up by his hands and swung him outward then around and around” (Morrison 60). Chicken laughed and laughed. He felt the release of Sula’s grip, but he kept on laughing. His fingertips grasped Heaven as he flew over the water. Once his body hit the sandy bottom he was face to face with Heaven’s gate. Chicken smiled with confidence as he walked on in and whispered in amazement. “I knew it was falling.”
* * * * *
The name Chicken Little was used in the book for a reason and I wanted to capitalize on that. I was just going to use a version of “The Sky is Falling” fable and use Chicken Little from the book instead of the chicken in the story, but it sounded funny for a boy to be walking around with a bunch of birds. So I decided to take the Chicken Little from Sula’s perspective on what happened to him, while still keeping some of the fabric of “The Sky is Falling” story. It took me a long time to figure out what to name Chicken’s brother but I chose Albert after I researched Sula’s name online and found out that in Icelandic it meant “the sun.” I found a website, http://www.halfdan.is/vestur/nofn.htm, with meanings of Icelandic names and found one that mean high-born. I figured Chicken’s brother would be older since he was so intent on telling him how high he was in the tree. The actual Icelandic name is Aðalbjörg, so I turned it into a more manageable name, hence Albert. I made Chicken see Sula’s birthmark as a fox because in the version of Chicken Little that I read, Chicken is eaten (killed) by a fox and Sula (accidentally) kills Chicken.
“Gosh darnit!” Chicken Little thought. “We’re so close to Heaven, it’s rainin’ on us.”
“Heaven is fallin’! Heaven’s a fallin’!” Chicken shouted. He practically toppled over Mrs. Jackson.
“Child, what are you screaming ‘bout?” the old lady asked, chewing on a piece of ice.
“Heaven’s fallin’. It knocked me o’er the head. Bottom’s gonna turn into Heaven.”
“Well, I’ll be” Mrs. Jackson murmured. She shook her head and began to walk away. “We could probably do with a bit more Heaven down here anyway.”
Heartened that Mrs. Jackson seemed to somewhat get what he was saying, Chicken Little began running towards the riverbank. His bare feet tossed up more dirt with each step as he increased speed. Not watching where he was going, he tripped on a rock and fell flat on his face. As he slowly picked himself off the ground, his eyes traveled all the way up to meet those of his older brother.
“Where ya headed brother?” Albert asked.
“Nowhere…” Chicken Little muttered. “I hafta tell everyone Heaven’s fallin’.”
“What did you say?”
“Heaven’s falling! It hit me in the noggin!”
“You an idiot! Heaven ain’t fallin’ down on nobody. Now git outta here ‘fore I tell Mama ‘bout your crazy talk. Or maybe I’ll just knock ya into Heaven right now,” Albert threatened, picking up a stone from the ground.
Heeding his brother’s warning, Chicken continued on his path toward the river. He ventured down to the lower bank to play in the water. After unbuttoning his knickers to go for a swim, he heard voices from above. He buttoned back up and started up the riverbank. There he spotted Nel and Sula gazing over the water. He stopped when they saw him and picked his nose. Nel yelled at him, but Sula quieted her.
Sula. Despite the strange fox over her eye, she was always kind and helpful to little Chicken. She even let him climb a tree.
“Hey, Sula. I think I can reach Heaven. It’s fallin’ down ya know.”
“How do you know that?”
“Well it hit me smack on the head.”
Sula flashed her big white teeth. “Alright Chicken, Heaven’s falling.” Looking into Sula’s eyes, Chicken knew he everything was going to be okay.
Back on the ground, Sula “picked [Chicken] up by his hands and swung him outward then around and around” (Morrison 60). Chicken laughed and laughed. He felt the release of Sula’s grip, but he kept on laughing. His fingertips grasped Heaven as he flew over the water. Once his body hit the sandy bottom he was face to face with Heaven’s gate. Chicken smiled with confidence as he walked on in and whispered in amazement. “I knew it was falling.”
* * * * *
The name Chicken Little was used in the book for a reason and I wanted to capitalize on that. I was just going to use a version of “The Sky is Falling” fable and use Chicken Little from the book instead of the chicken in the story, but it sounded funny for a boy to be walking around with a bunch of birds. So I decided to take the Chicken Little from Sula’s perspective on what happened to him, while still keeping some of the fabric of “The Sky is Falling” story. It took me a long time to figure out what to name Chicken’s brother but I chose Albert after I researched Sula’s name online and found out that in Icelandic it meant “the sun.” I found a website, http://www.halfdan.is/vestur/nofn.htm, with meanings of Icelandic names and found one that mean high-born. I figured Chicken’s brother would be older since he was so intent on telling him how high he was in the tree. The actual Icelandic name is Aðalbjörg, so I turned it into a more manageable name, hence Albert. I made Chicken see Sula’s birthmark as a fox because in the version of Chicken Little that I read, Chicken is eaten (killed) by a fox and Sula (accidentally) kills Chicken.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Sula
This book surprised me. I was warned that there were some explicit scenes, which I found to be truer than I expected. Not just the sexual parts, but the deaths, especially burning. Toni Morrison is a very detailed author. From the beginning I was struck by her descriptions, like of what Shadrack sees after getting out of the hospital. “There were many people…they were thin slips, like paper dolls floating down the walks…A good high wind would pull them up and away and they would land perhaps among the tops of the trees” (11). Throughout the book Morrison’s language makes me feels like I am a part of the scene.
She is also good at making me feel what the characters are feeling. When Eva is explaining to Hannah why she killed her own child, I want to cry along with her. “I just thought of a way he could die like a man…But I held him close first…My baby boy” (72). Eva is a mother who only wants to do what she thinks is best for her son, even if that means murdering him.
The relationships between children and their parents was a strong topic in this novel, and a disheartening one. This subject is mainly exemplified with mothers and their daughters. A daughter seeks loves from her mother, but does not receive it, and the pattern gets repeated down the generations. This is evident with the Peace women: Eva, Hannah, and Sula. Hannah asks Eve if she loved her when she was little and Eva says “No. I don’t reckon I did” (67). Then when Hannah is talking to her friends, Sula hears her tell them “I love Sula. I just don’t like her” (57). Sula is crushed, as any child would be.
Yet what I took from these relationships is the way the characters define and express love. Hannah says she loves Sula, but basically only because she’s her mother. Nel too “had looked at her children and knew…That they were all she would ever know of love. But it was a love that…had cooked out” (165). Eva interprets love as her motherly duty as well. She yells at Hannah saying “what you talkin’ ‘bout did I love you girl I stayed alive for you” (69). In Sula, being a mother is an act of love in itself.
Sex is a common act in the book, and one usually thought to be of love. However, the characters in Sula challenge that belief. After Sula sleeps with Nel’s husband Jude, Nel is devastated. A few years later when Sula is sick in bed, Nel comes to visit and asks Sula why she did it. “[Sula] looked bored…‛Well, there was this space in front of me, behind me, in my head…And Jude filled it up. That’s all’”(144). Sula doesn’t see sex as a very big deal, a lesson she probably learned from her mother. “[Hannah] would f--- practically anything” which “taught Sula that sex was pleasant and frequent, but otherwise unremarkable” (43,44). Sula adopts her attitudes about men from her mother, but her way of life affects many people.
It really surprised me that the whole town is affected by Sula’s actions. Being a tight-knit community, it makes sense that people gossip about Sula, but I didn’t expect that they would act differently because of her. Sula is named a devil after sending Eva to an old folks home, sleeping with Jude, and doing “the unforgivable thing…[sleeping] with white men” (112). Yet the town, rather than be stirred up and angry as I would anticipate, unites with love. “They began to cherish their husbands and wives, protect their children, repair their homes and in general band together against the devil in their midst” (117). Sula’s corrupt behaviors cause the people of the Bottom to be kind.
Just the opposite happens when Sula dies. While “The death of Sula Peace was the best news folks up in the Bottom had,” the community does not react happily (150). “Hard on the heels of the general relief that Sula’s death brought a restless irritability took hold….The tension was gone and so was the reason for the effort they had made” (153). Sula, however disliked, is a powerful woman who has a strong hold on the town. She is persistent with what she did. And although she may make the wrong choices, at least in the eyes of others, one thing is very true—she is herself.
Sula always knows what she wants, and she goes out and gets it. Her confidence makes her a good friend for Nel, who even with her “new found me-ness” lives under a mother who “drove her daughter’s imagination underground” (29,18). Nel and Sula are opposites, but that is no hindrance to their friendship. “[Sula] made [Nel] laugh…made her see old things with new eyes, in [her] presence [Nel] felt clever, gentle and a little raunchy” (95). Nel needs Sula and Sula needs Nel. “[Sula] had clung to Nel as the closest thing to both an other and a self...Nel was the one person who wanted nothing from her, who had accepted all aspects of her” (119). Even though it takes Nel a long while to realize it, she needs Sula more than anyone. At the end of the books Nel discovers that she was grieving the loss of Sula, not Jude.
A major lesson I got out of Sula was the value of a great friendship. Nel and Sula have a strong bond, and while they never regained that bond after Sula slept with Jude, both women were changed by their companionship. This book makes me value my own friends even more.
Some things I want to talk about in discussion are the characters of Shadrack and Eva, and what it means to be part of the Bottom. I also want to discuss what happened when everyone joined Shadrack in the National Suicide Day march. Actually, I just need some clarification on everything relating to Shadrack because his character confused me, especially at the beginning of the book. I don’t know why he was in the hospital or what was going on when he first got out of the hospital.
She is also good at making me feel what the characters are feeling. When Eva is explaining to Hannah why she killed her own child, I want to cry along with her. “I just thought of a way he could die like a man…But I held him close first…My baby boy” (72). Eva is a mother who only wants to do what she thinks is best for her son, even if that means murdering him.
The relationships between children and their parents was a strong topic in this novel, and a disheartening one. This subject is mainly exemplified with mothers and their daughters. A daughter seeks loves from her mother, but does not receive it, and the pattern gets repeated down the generations. This is evident with the Peace women: Eva, Hannah, and Sula. Hannah asks Eve if she loved her when she was little and Eva says “No. I don’t reckon I did” (67). Then when Hannah is talking to her friends, Sula hears her tell them “I love Sula. I just don’t like her” (57). Sula is crushed, as any child would be.
Yet what I took from these relationships is the way the characters define and express love. Hannah says she loves Sula, but basically only because she’s her mother. Nel too “had looked at her children and knew…That they were all she would ever know of love. But it was a love that…had cooked out” (165). Eva interprets love as her motherly duty as well. She yells at Hannah saying “what you talkin’ ‘bout did I love you girl I stayed alive for you” (69). In Sula, being a mother is an act of love in itself.
Sex is a common act in the book, and one usually thought to be of love. However, the characters in Sula challenge that belief. After Sula sleeps with Nel’s husband Jude, Nel is devastated. A few years later when Sula is sick in bed, Nel comes to visit and asks Sula why she did it. “[Sula] looked bored…‛Well, there was this space in front of me, behind me, in my head…And Jude filled it up. That’s all’”(144). Sula doesn’t see sex as a very big deal, a lesson she probably learned from her mother. “[Hannah] would f--- practically anything” which “taught Sula that sex was pleasant and frequent, but otherwise unremarkable” (43,44). Sula adopts her attitudes about men from her mother, but her way of life affects many people.
It really surprised me that the whole town is affected by Sula’s actions. Being a tight-knit community, it makes sense that people gossip about Sula, but I didn’t expect that they would act differently because of her. Sula is named a devil after sending Eva to an old folks home, sleeping with Jude, and doing “the unforgivable thing…[sleeping] with white men” (112). Yet the town, rather than be stirred up and angry as I would anticipate, unites with love. “They began to cherish their husbands and wives, protect their children, repair their homes and in general band together against the devil in their midst” (117). Sula’s corrupt behaviors cause the people of the Bottom to be kind.
Just the opposite happens when Sula dies. While “The death of Sula Peace was the best news folks up in the Bottom had,” the community does not react happily (150). “Hard on the heels of the general relief that Sula’s death brought a restless irritability took hold….The tension was gone and so was the reason for the effort they had made” (153). Sula, however disliked, is a powerful woman who has a strong hold on the town. She is persistent with what she did. And although she may make the wrong choices, at least in the eyes of others, one thing is very true—she is herself.
Sula always knows what she wants, and she goes out and gets it. Her confidence makes her a good friend for Nel, who even with her “new found me-ness” lives under a mother who “drove her daughter’s imagination underground” (29,18). Nel and Sula are opposites, but that is no hindrance to their friendship. “[Sula] made [Nel] laugh…made her see old things with new eyes, in [her] presence [Nel] felt clever, gentle and a little raunchy” (95). Nel needs Sula and Sula needs Nel. “[Sula] had clung to Nel as the closest thing to both an other and a self...Nel was the one person who wanted nothing from her, who had accepted all aspects of her” (119). Even though it takes Nel a long while to realize it, she needs Sula more than anyone. At the end of the books Nel discovers that she was grieving the loss of Sula, not Jude.
A major lesson I got out of Sula was the value of a great friendship. Nel and Sula have a strong bond, and while they never regained that bond after Sula slept with Jude, both women were changed by their companionship. This book makes me value my own friends even more.
Some things I want to talk about in discussion are the characters of Shadrack and Eva, and what it means to be part of the Bottom. I also want to discuss what happened when everyone joined Shadrack in the National Suicide Day march. Actually, I just need some clarification on everything relating to Shadrack because his character confused me, especially at the beginning of the book. I don’t know why he was in the hospital or what was going on when he first got out of the hospital.
Fort Marion
I made a poster about Fort Marion and to answer the question of what happened to the prisoners kept there.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Goldman, Marlene. "Mapping and dreaming: Native resistance in Green Grass, Running Water." Canadian Literature. 1999. 18. eLibrary. Proquest. 03 Mar 2007. Available: http://elibrary.bigchalk.com.
Kirkwood, Scott. "Drawing on Experience." National Parks. 01 Apr 2006. 20. eLibrary. Proquest. 03 Mar 2007. Available: http://elibrary.bigchalk.com.
Werner, Louis. "Captive warriors' eloquent sketches.(ledger drawings by Plains Indians)." Americas (English Edition). 01 Jun 1998. 28(8). eLibrary. Proquest. 03 Mar 2007. Available: http://elibrary.bigchalk.com.
PROCESS
I went to the Champlin Park website and found a list of online resources to use for research. I ended up using all of my sources from Elibrary because they had the most scholarly articles that had beneficial information. I then read through the articles and typed the summarizing notes to use as points on my poster.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Goldman, Marlene. "Mapping and dreaming: Native resistance in Green Grass, Running Water." Canadian Literature. 1999. 18. eLibrary. Proquest. 03 Mar 2007. Available: http://elibrary.bigchalk.com.
Kirkwood, Scott. "Drawing on Experience." National Parks. 01 Apr 2006. 20. eLibrary. Proquest. 03 Mar 2007. Available: http://elibrary.bigchalk.com.
Werner, Louis. "Captive warriors' eloquent sketches.(ledger drawings by Plains Indians)." Americas (English Edition). 01 Jun 1998. 28(8). eLibrary. Proquest. 03 Mar 2007. Available: http://elibrary.bigchalk.com.
PROCESS
I went to the Champlin Park website and found a list of online resources to use for research. I ended up using all of my sources from Elibrary because they had the most scholarly articles that had beneficial information. I then read through the articles and typed the summarizing notes to use as points on my poster.
Story-truth
Truth is a hard term to define. According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, truth is “sincerity in action, character, and utterance.” Yet how can one know what is sincere? Truth has to be a relative term then, where each individual has his own beliefs about what is true. In both the novels The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien and Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King the reader has to discover what the truth is. Both books rely on the truth of stories to reveal each author’s truth about life.
The Things They Carried is a series of stories that teach the reader the truth about war. One of the characters, Rat Kiley, was a medic who, after spending nights out on watch, would “stare at guys who were still okay, the alive guys, and…start to picture how they’d look dead” (222). For the sake of his troop, he ends up bravely shooting himself in the foot to go home. His story shows the reader the hard things soldiers went through, especially doctors. Another character in the book named Tim O’Brien gets his draft notice and has to make the decision of whether to go to Vietnam or flee to Canada. He ends up on a boat yards from the Canadian border and “All [he] could do was cry” (57). The decision weighed on his shoulders, and he had to give in to going to war. Although this didn’t really happen, the reader can understand that soldiers had a hard choice to make. Through stories, O’Brien conveys his own truth about war to his readers.
Similarly, Green Grass, Running Water is a mixture of stories that teach the reader the truth about Indian Life. Throughout the book, “I” tells a creation story about a woman in four different ways. Each of these stories ends with the woman being taken away to Fort Marion. “First Woman…[is] on that train and there are a bunch of Indians on that train with chains on…Everybody is going to Florida” (105). Fort Marion was a prison in Flordia where Indians who fought against the US government were kept. These stories make it evident to the reader that the events at Fort Marion are a horrible part of Native American history. In the book there are four Indians out to save the world as well. One way they do this is by “fixing” a John Wayne movie so that “none of the Indians fell….the rest of the Indians began to shoot…and soldiers began falling over” (358). John Wayne and his white men usually defeat the Indians, but the story is changed. King uses this story to show his readers the truth of how Native Americans have struggled under the white culture, but also his personal truth that they can rise above it.
Both O’Brien and King’s use of stories provides the reader with each author’s view of truth. Tim O’Brien says that “story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth” (179). That is because stories are universal. The Archetypal lens sees stories as a way to reveal a theme, like truth, to any sort of culture, whether that is war veterans or Native Americans. In Green Grass, Running Water “I” says that “There are no truths…Only stories” (432). Truth is hard to define, but stories have shape and solidity.
The use of stories in both books helps readers relate the author’s truth to their own version. Truth does not have to be the exact events that happened or have a precise definition, but it must teach the reader something. Stories engage the readers of both novels, and they show what truth really is. Transcending cultures, time, and places, stories reveal to us the truth we miss in our own experiences.
The Things They Carried is a series of stories that teach the reader the truth about war. One of the characters, Rat Kiley, was a medic who, after spending nights out on watch, would “stare at guys who were still okay, the alive guys, and…start to picture how they’d look dead” (222). For the sake of his troop, he ends up bravely shooting himself in the foot to go home. His story shows the reader the hard things soldiers went through, especially doctors. Another character in the book named Tim O’Brien gets his draft notice and has to make the decision of whether to go to Vietnam or flee to Canada. He ends up on a boat yards from the Canadian border and “All [he] could do was cry” (57). The decision weighed on his shoulders, and he had to give in to going to war. Although this didn’t really happen, the reader can understand that soldiers had a hard choice to make. Through stories, O’Brien conveys his own truth about war to his readers.
Similarly, Green Grass, Running Water is a mixture of stories that teach the reader the truth about Indian Life. Throughout the book, “I” tells a creation story about a woman in four different ways. Each of these stories ends with the woman being taken away to Fort Marion. “First Woman…[is] on that train and there are a bunch of Indians on that train with chains on…Everybody is going to Florida” (105). Fort Marion was a prison in Flordia where Indians who fought against the US government were kept. These stories make it evident to the reader that the events at Fort Marion are a horrible part of Native American history. In the book there are four Indians out to save the world as well. One way they do this is by “fixing” a John Wayne movie so that “none of the Indians fell….the rest of the Indians began to shoot…and soldiers began falling over” (358). John Wayne and his white men usually defeat the Indians, but the story is changed. King uses this story to show his readers the truth of how Native Americans have struggled under the white culture, but also his personal truth that they can rise above it.
Both O’Brien and King’s use of stories provides the reader with each author’s view of truth. Tim O’Brien says that “story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth” (179). That is because stories are universal. The Archetypal lens sees stories as a way to reveal a theme, like truth, to any sort of culture, whether that is war veterans or Native Americans. In Green Grass, Running Water “I” says that “There are no truths…Only stories” (432). Truth is hard to define, but stories have shape and solidity.
The use of stories in both books helps readers relate the author’s truth to their own version. Truth does not have to be the exact events that happened or have a precise definition, but it must teach the reader something. Stories engage the readers of both novels, and they show what truth really is. Transcending cultures, time, and places, stories reveal to us the truth we miss in our own experiences.
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