I denne study guide kan du få hjælp til at analysere novellen "The Whale" af Witi Ihimaera. Udover analysehjælpen kan du finde et summary af teksten samt idéer til fortolkning og perspektivering.
Præsentation af teksten
Titel: “The Whale” (1987)
Forfatter: Witi Ihimaera
Genre: Novelle
Witi Tame Ihimaera-Smiler (f. 1944) er mest kendt under sit forfatternavn Witi Ihimaera. Han er den første maori-forfatter som er blevet udgivet i New Zealand, og han skriver typisk noveller og romaner, som udforsker maori-kulturen og dens plads i den moderne verden. Udover sin forfatterkarriere har Ihimaera også været diplomat for New Zealand og har i den forbindelse været udstationeret i USA og Australien.
Uddrag
Nedenfor kan du læse et kort uddrag af vores study guide til novellen:
Title
The title of Witi Ihimaera's short story, “The Whale”, will probably lead readers to expect the story to revolve around a whale, either literally or symbolically.
Reading the story, the title is shown to be symbolic, as the action of the story does not focus on the whale until the very end. The story contains references to two different whales. One appears in a Maori legend:
This is Paikea, riding a whale across the sea to Aotearoa. He was told not to let the whale touch the land. But he was tired after the long journey, and he made the whale come to shore. It touched the sand, and became an island. (ll. 64-66)
The legend refers to an ancestor named Paikea who rode a whale to New Zealand, which is called Aotearoa in Maori. When the whale reached the shore, it turned into an island, now known as the island of Whāngārā. The story is symbolic of the Maori connection with marine animals and nature in general. It also suggests that the whale is a symbol of Maori settlements and culture. This symbolism becomes even more obvious at the end: “And as the old one approaches, he sees that it is a whale, stranded in the breakwater, threshing in the sand, already stripped of flesh by the falling gulls” (ll. 233-234).
