Journey 2z1d2j

Journey – Patricia Grace Themes:     

Maori values and culture Changes with age and time Tradition vs. New Ideas Differences in culture Journeys

Techniques:  Repetition “Same old…”  Clichés “Good as gold”  Colloquial language “young fulla” Characters:    

Old Man Stroppy and judgemental Wants to be respected despite his age Nostalgic for the old days yet accepts change must happen ires Pakeha progress yet wants to keep the old ways too

Quotes:  “He was an old man going on a journey”  “He liked that word Journey even though you didn’t quite say it"  “If some old pakeha died in *his coat+ that’s too bad because he wasn’t scared of the pakeha kehuas anyway”  “Funny people those town people”  “Doing his talking for him, made him sick”  “But people have to have houses”  “And probably the whole of life was like that, sitting in the dark watching and waiting” (comparison to a tunnel)  “*Pakeha+ couldn’t go round, only through. Couldn’t give life, only death”  “It’s only paper and you can change it”

At the basis of "Journey" is the very real issue of land ownership, dramatized here as a confrontation between the old Maori who claims the right to leave his land sub-divided among his heirs according to Maori custom, and the government department that has appropriated his land and the entire locality for development. Between the two parties no communication is possible, a situation underlined by the differences in their language. One argues for people and their need for houses, the other enumerates the engineering problems; one speaks from first-hand experience of the nature of the soil and the vegetables it will produce, the other resorts to maps and plans and the abstractions of "aesthetic aspects." "Journey" is characteristic of Grace's stories in that the action is sited in the consciousness of the main character. Virtually all her early work accesses this consciousness by way of first-person narration.