Indigenous Humor in Thomas King's The Back of the Turtle: An Ecocritical Perspective

Abstract

ABSTRACT Although environmental catastrophe seems an unlikely topic for humor, Edward Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang established the precedent for this incongruity in 1975. Thomas King's The Back of the Turtle (2012) follows Abbey's postmodern lead. However, this articles argues that King deploys a more comprehensive and diverse strategy of humor, ingeniously synthesizing the tragic and the comic to call attention to the perils of environmental degradation. A central element in his strategy is his infusing his narrative with Indigenous markers—creation stories, Native motifs, and reinterpretations of Indigenous-white relations—that he uses in a scathingly humorous way to carry forward the storytelling style of his earlier works.