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Oppression and the Justice System
Themes and Colors
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Green Grass, Running Water, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
As the title suggests, Green Grass, Running Water is in part a novel about humanity’s relationship with nature. The novel begins and ends with the image of a world full of nothing but water, and water in particular plays a role throughout the narrative in demonstrating nature’s power. Each of the four parts of the novel contains a plotline about a woman (First Woman, Changing Woman, Thought Woman, and Old Woman) who is there for the creation of the world, and she is often at the mercy of the natural forces around her, being carried wherever the water takes her. The power of nature to shape the destinies of these women in the creation stories represents how, in general, nature has played a pivotal role in shaping the course of humanity.
Nature also appears prominently in the plotlines that take place closer to the narrative present (when the novel was written in the 1990s). One of the main conflicts in the novel involves a dam built near the small town of Blossom. Sifton and the other men involved with the dam promise that the Indians will benefit from this man-made effort to control the water, but Eli complains that the dam has made the fishing worse. While Sifton’s efforts to control nature seem at first to have succeeded, everything comes apart in the climax of the novel when an earthquake breaks the dam and seems to even break the structure of the story, finally uniting the creation stories of the traveling women with the present-day stories. Like the trickster god, Coyote (who controls the weather with his singing and dancing), nature is unpredictable and ultimately beyond human control. Green Grass, Running Water is a reminder that despite humanity’s efforts to control nature, it is ultimately a more powerful force, and this means that it’s better to try to understand nature, as many of the Indian characters do, than to try to fight it.
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The Power of Nature ThemeTracker
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of The Power of Nature appears in each part of Green Grass, Running Water. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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The Power of Nature Quotes in Green Grass, Running Water
Below you will find the important quotes in Green Grass, Running Water related to the theme of The Power of Nature.
Part 3
Quotes
So that Thought Woman takes off her nice clothes, and that one gets into the River.
Whoa! says Thought Woman. That is one cold River. This must be a tricky River.
Swim to the middle, says that tricky River. It is much warmer there.
So Thought Woman swims to the middle of that River and it is warmer there.
This is better, says Thought Woman, and she lies back on the River and floats with the current. Thought Woman floats on that River, and that one goes to sleep.
I am very sleepy, says Thought Woman, and then she goes to sleep.
Hee-hee, says that River. Hee-hee.
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Part 4
Quotes
Well. Old Woman watches Young Man Walking On Water. She watches him stomp his feet. She watches him yell at those Waves. She watches him shout at that Boat. So, she feels sorry for him. Pardon me, she says. Would you like some help?
There you go again, says Young Man Walking On Water. Trying to tell me what to do.
Well, says Old Woman, someone has to. You are acting as though you have no relations. You shouldn’t yell at those happy Waves. You shouldn’t shout at that jolly Boat. You got to sing a song.
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Sifton felt it first, a sudden shifting, a sideways turning, a flexing, the snapping crack of concrete and steel, and in that instant the water rose out of the lake like a mountain, sucking the cars under and pitching them high in the air, sending them at the dam in an awful rush.
And the dam gave way, and the water and the cars tumbled over the edge of the world.
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Lionel waited until Charlie’s car disappeared down the road. “So,” he said to Alberta, “you in town for the weekend?”
“That’s right,” said Alberta. “Figured I’d give Norma a hand.”
“With what?”
“With the cabin,” said Norma. “You can help, too.”
Lionel stopped what he was doing and looked at Norma and then he looked at the dam. “You’re not serious?”
“Sure she is, brother,” said Latisha.
“Won’t take much,” said Norma. “We’ll get Harley’s truck and drag as many logs as we can back up here, and what we’re short, we can cut and bring in.”
“That’s a lot of work,” said Lionel.
“My mother did it,” said Norma. “Did it all by herself.”
Alberta set her feet in the mud and put her hands on her hips. “You can help or you can sell televisions.”
“Okay, okay, here goes,” says Coyote. “In the beginning, there was nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“That’s right,” says Coyote. “Nothing.”
“No,” I says. “In the beginning, there was just the water.”
“Water?” says Coyote.
“Yes,” I says. “Water.”
“Hmmmm,” says Coyote. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I says, “I’m sure.”
“Okay,” says Coyote, “if you say so. But where did all the water come from?”
“Sit down,” I says to Coyote.
“But there is water everywhere,” says Coyote.
“That’s true,” I says. “And here’s how it happened.”
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