Writer’s purpose
- To show how hard it was for Maori to belong in their own country and how they tried to achieve this.
- To show the readers what it was like for Maori living during WWI and II.
- To show the futility of war.
Themes:
The First and Second World Wars had a terrible/ devastating/wide-reaching impact on Maori people.
In what ways does the novel reveal this theme?
- Mental effects - Through Tu’s father who suffered from PTSD – Pita’s story 3rd person
- Through Tu’s mental illness after returning from Italy.
- Family had to move to Wellington – away from their mountain – sense a dislocation (not fitting in) in the city – through Pita’s inability to fit in.
- Finding jobs in the city was difficult – seasonal labour – low pay ½ pay of white man. Treated as 2nd class citizens
- Maori Battalion formed to fight for their country in order to gain equal citizenship - effect was a huge loss of life but equal citizenship was not gained. ‘Back to the pa now boys.’
- Long term effect on families – lost the father and two of three boys (Pita and Rangi) and Tu came home, unfit to support his family.
- Rimini and Benedict grew up without fathers.
Maori were forced to make excessive sacrifices in order to gain ‘equal’ citizenship.
In what ways does the novel reveal this theme?
Other themes:
- Many Maori struggled to maintain a sense of belonging during WWII
- Family is important
- Belonging is important
- Maori struggled to achieve equality in N.Z. during WW11
- There was no racial equality for Maori in the early to mid 20th Century.
- War is futile. ( a waste).