Patricia Grace
Patricia Grace was born in Wellington in 1937. Patricia Grace is the
first Maori women to publish a collection of short stories, Waiariki
(1975). Since then she has published three other collections , four
children’s books and several novels. Today she is regarded as one of
New Zealand’s finest writers.
At Teachers’ College, she began to seek out books by New Zealand
authors, including Frank Sargeson, Janet Frame and Amelia Batistich:
‘when I first read some of her stories it came home to me [that]
writing was a question of voice and truth, and of a writer finding
his/her own way of telling. She began writing at about 25 while
teaching in North Auckland, being published in Te Ao Hou and the
NZ Listener, and continued to write while teaching, raising her family
of seven children and moving to Plimmerton, near Wellington, where
she still lives.
What do you think this critical commentary is actually saying about
Grace’s writing?
Her work, expressive of Mäori consciousness and values, is
distinguished also for the variety of Mäori people and ways of life it
portrays and for its resourceful versatility of style and narrative and
descriptive technique.
Source: NZ Book Council
Grace on writing and finding a voice …
‘Yes, all through my schooling I had never read a
book by a New Zealand writer. When I went to
teachers college I read the works of Frank
Sargeson and for the first time I realised what
writing was. I realised that it started from your own
personal experience background and
surroundings, whereas before, during my school
experience, writing had been the opposite to that.
So I read the works of Frank Sargeson and started
hearing the New Zealand voice for the first time in
literature. And then I read the work of Amelia
Batistich I realised that she had a different New
Zealand voice. It reinforced the idea that writers
had their own voices. It occurred to me when I
read those works that I had a voice as well, and I
thought that I would like to try that out.’
Grace on characterisation …
‘I need to explore characters and
bend them, find ways for them
to be seen in the way I want
them seen.’
‘I want to make them understood
and known. The things they do and
say might seem exaggerated
sometimes, but through that they
become real.’
Brainstorming
• Maori perspective + attitude to land.
• Difference between Maori + Pakeha relationships
to land.
• What does ‘colonisation’ mean?
• Why do Maori spiritual beliefs favour burial over
cremation?
Mix and Match Vocabulary
Homework
• Re-read the story
• Analyse opening paragraph
i) Narrative perspective
ii) Setting
iii) Techniques
iv) Characterisation
v) Tone/Mood /Atmosphere
• Why is it called, Journey ?
Tasks for closer reading
• What is the purpose of the old man’s journey?
• To what extent did the officials listen to the old man? Find a
quote that supports your point of view and suggest what tone
the remarks are made in.
• ‘And anyway Sir there’s no advantage do you think in you people
all living in the same area.’ Why do the authorities think there
isn’t any benefit to the family living close together?
• ‘Why does the old man want to be cremated instead of buried?
• How do the opening two paragraphs and the closing passage
from ‘They were quiet wondering if he would say anything
else,…’ reflect the Uncle’s changing mood?
• Why do you think the story concludes with Uncle ‘looking at the palm
of his hands’?
• Grace employs a motif of blindness / sight throughout the story, why
do you think?
‘Yes he knows all about those things, he’s not deaf and blind yet, not only
by a long shot.’
’…they’ve got the name of the canoes spelt wrong, his old eyes aren’t as
blind as that.’
‘His eyes are still good enough to look all over the paper and see his land
there, and to see that his land has been shaded in and ‘Off Street Parking’
printed on it.’
• Why do you think Grace gave the ‘a’ in admiration a capital letter in this
phrase; ‘..and roadways threading up and round the hills to layer on
layer of houses, even in the highest and steepest places. He was filled
with admiration. Filled with Admiration…but yes he was filled right to
the top-it made him tired taking it all in.’?
• Write at least two sentences on how the old man views the land and
the way the Pakeha have ‘developed it’? Do embed a short quote
into each sentence.
‘Funny people these pakehas, had to chop up everything. Couldn’t
talk to a hill or a tree these people, couldn’t give the trees or the
hills a name and make them special and leave them. Couldn’t go
round, only through. Couldn’t give life, only death.’
‘Then the rain’ll come and the cuts will bleed for miles and the
valleys will drown in blood, but the pakeha will find a way of
mopping it all up no trouble. Could find a few bones amongst that
lot too. That’s what you get when you dig up the ground, bones.
‘Funny people putting their trains across the sea.’
‘And up there past the cenotaph, that’s where they’d bulldozed all
the bones and put in the new motorway. Resited, he still
remembered the newspaper word, all in together. Your leg bone,
my arm bone, someone else’s bunch of teeth and fingers,
someone else’s head, funny people…And they’d put all the
headstones in a heap somewhere promising to set them all up
again tastefully’
• Use the quotes below / overleaf, or others from the
text and your knowledge of the old man’s character to
write at least two sentences on what kind of person he
is. Do include an embedded quote in each sentence.
Out early today old man.’
It’ll be a sorry worm , young fulla, a sorry worm.’
‘the sea’s turning over rough and heavy – Tamatiea that’s
why…but who’d believe you these days. They’d rather
stare at their weather on television and talk about a this
and a that coming over because there’s nothing else to
believe in.’
‘It doesn’t matter about me because I’m on the way out,
but before I go I want it all done.’
‘Wanted to swing a heavy punch but he’s too old for it.
He kicked the desk instead. Hard.
1. Describe the relationship between the Uncle and his nephew George.
‘The door would slowly open and the eyes would come round and he would say I ran away Uncle…..
Today if he had time he would look out for George.’
‘There’s no sense, no sense in anything, but what use telling that to George when George already knew
sitting beside him wordless. What use telling George you go empty handed and leave nothing behind,
when George had always wanted been empty handed, had never wanted anything except to have
nothing.
2. What is preventing the old man from subdividing the land and getting, ‘nothing more than
what is ours already.’?
‘You would all receive
equivalent sites…
Resited…
As I say on equivalent land.. ‘
‘There’s no sense in it don’t you
see? That’s their stamping ground
and when you’ve got your ties
there’s no equal land.’
Sir. Kept calling him Sir, and the way he
said it didn’t sound so well, but it was
difficult to be sure at first. After a while
you knew, you couldn’t help knowing.’
• There are also lots of feet and leg images in the short story forming
a motif, why do you think Grace has included them?
• The narrative shifts perspective in Journey. ‘At times the old man
seems to watch himself in action, to observe himself objectively
before returning to a subjective expression of his feelings and
knowledge.’ (a) Identify the objective and subjective parts in the
passage below:
‘He better go to the lavatory because he didn’t trust town lavatories,
people spewed there and wrote rude words. Last time he got
something stuck on his shoe. Funny people those town people.’
(b) How does the shifting narrative affect your view of the old man?
• What is your opinion on how Grace has structured the story:
consider the physical journey, opening and ending taxi rides, and
the reader’s journey.
• In pairs act out the conversation the old man has with the
authorities. You will need to cut out the interspersed train station
observations, and work out the two speaking roles.
Summative Tasks
• You are the elderly man write your thoughts as you
sit on the edge of your ‘bed for a long time looking
at the palms’ of your hands.
• Construct an essay response to:
Discuss the narrator’s character in ‘Journey’ by Patricia
Grace, to what extent do you sympathise with his
attitude to the land?
or
How does Grace make you feel about the elderly
narrator in Journey?
Essay due today
• Discuss the narrator’s character in ‘Journey’ by
Patricia Grace, to what extent do you
sympathise with his attitude to the land?
or
• How does Grace make you feel about the
elderly narrator in Journey?
Essay topics
• How the passage of time important
• The significance of the clash of two worlds
• How the conflict between the traditional and
the modern is significant
• The importance of the relationship between
young and old generations
• How man and nature come into conflict with
one another
Essay topic sentences
Traditional/
Passage of time Clash of 2
Young/Old
modern
worlds
Our time is
limited and The reason for As society
develops
we never
the journey,
morals and
know how
Pakeha see
values change
quickly it will
the land as
causing
run out.
financial
fragmentatio
rather than
Events flow in
n.
spiritual.
the Journey
the problem Obstruction
of inequality
and conflict
is
between
continuous.
cultures
and
generations
Man/ Nature
Open Boat =
Oiler did
most of the
work and
died –
nature will
eventually
be the
conqueror
of man.
SUMMARY
• Patricia Grace’s first novel, Mutuwhenua, was significant in being the
first novel published by a woman Maori writer, and she has become
an important figure in Maori writing in English in New Zealand.
Journey shows her interest in the Maoris’ traditional claims on land.
•
• The rather dislocated narrative, with limited punctuation and no
speech markings, creates the effect of creating the old man’s
perspective, although the narrative is written in the third person.
This old man’s perspective, with its old Maori wisdom, is shown to
be out of balance with ‘these young people’, the ‘cars and railways’,
the new housing and the growth of the city. His journey into the city
makes him feel more and more alienated, and this is accentuated
when the narrative is interspersed with the interview dialogue. The
official and the old man cannot make each other understand. There
is no comprehension on either side of the other’s view of how land
should be used, and the story ends with frustration, violence and
disillusion. In this story, Grace suggests that traditional Maori
governance of land has no place in modern government and
planning.
EXTENSION
Wider reading
• Mutuwhenua (novel) or The Dream Sleepers and Other
Stories (short stories) by Patricia Grace
• Playing Waterloo by Peter Hawes
• The Bone People by Keri Hulme
Compare with
• The People Before by Maurice Shadbolt
• To Da-duh, In Memoriam by Paule Marshall
Online
• Biographical and other information about Patricia Grace is
available at:
• http://www.artsfoundation.org.nz/patricia.html