Question 1: My family that lives with me for the most part of the year is my two parents, mom and dad, and two siblings, one brother and one sister. One-third of the year my dad’s mom lives with us. She goes to Arizona from September to April. While my grandma does not live with us, I would say that we are close to your typical “nuclear” family. A nuclear family is usually two parents and their children, so we fit that when my grandma does not live with us. However, when my grandma does live with us, I would say we stray away from the “nuclear” family because grandparents do not typically live with you. Question 2: One material item that would represent my identity are my softball bat. I have played softball since I was 5, so I have grown up with it. I have met a lot of people through softball. My bat signifies all the years I have played softball, and the love I have for the game. But it also represents all the friendships, and social interactions I have made with people throughout the years. Without playing softball I would not have met some of my friends I have today. …show more content…
In the book, The Whale Rider, they cherish the whale so much that they have a statue of a man on a whale in their city. Also in the movie, The Whale Rider, Koro wears a whale’s tooth around his neck. That shows that whales are a great part of their heritage and about their past realatives. My object I chose to identify me versus the object I chose for New Zealanders do not necessarily go together, but both objects we were raised with. Both of the objects chosen we grew up with, so they became a part of
“Whales provide us with the food for our bodies, bones for our tools and implements and spirits for our souls.” “We haven’t hunted the whale for 70 years but have hunted them in our hearts and in our minds.” “Whales are a central focus of our culture today as they have been from the beginning of time.”
To fight is to stand up for what is right, break through the walls of what is acceptable, and to have the fire blazing in the eyes of a warrior. Throughout life society has taught humanity to form into a definite way that should not ever change, but through life there has been a small population who are immune from societies spell. The outcasts that must battle to stand up for what they believe is right. In the novels Antigone, Anthem, and in the movie Whale Rider, the main characters fight for what they believe is right by standing up to society's norms the society has deemed acceptable.
Their dorsal fin is extremely long, tampered and pointed in a triangular shape or rounded and curved towards the end. The skull is oval shaped and the beak is extremely short and rounded at the end. The killer whale’s jaw is powerful with teeth that are able to tear apart flesh of their prey. They can withstand the jolting, wiggling and hurtling movements of prey that are trying to escape. The killer whale is born with a single blow hole instead of two. Their flippers are paddle shaped with rounded ends and flukes are tapered back and pointed at the end resembling to a triangle/pyramid
Whales living in captivity become aggravated and have been known to take out anger on themselves by self harming. In the pools they live in, metal bars are placed in between the pools to prevent the killer whales from swimming to another pool. On several occurrences, the whales have attempted to bite and break the metal bars. This leaves the whales with broken teeth and a risk of infection. Infections in killer whales can lead to death in many cases. If a whale gets an infection, they have to be taken out of the pool and placed into another pool by themselves to prevent any problems with other killer whales they live with. In many cases, whales with infections need serious care from whale specialists.
The breaking of tradition usually results in a family falling apart, but sometimes families become closer. The film, Whale Rider, opens with a woman giving birth to twins. Sadly the mother and one twins die during childbirth. The grandfather, Koro, wanted a male gandson to become the next chief of the village. Tradition states that the first born son becomes the next chief but Koro’s first son does not want to become chief, the the next best thing is his grandson. However, the twin that died was male and the female twin survived. The female twin, Paikea, when she gets older, fights the tradition of a male chief, and eventually becomes chief. This idea of breaking tradition almost tears her family apart. Koro is a firm believer in traditional
In the story, “The Shark Swimmers,” starts with how most kids are when they are young. The three boys are innocent just going to their favorite show on the beach admiring the cutest girl in their school. The author, Melissa Fraterrigo, is known for many other books including her novel Glory Days (Melissa). She is also known for her short story collection The Longest Pregnancy (Melissa). Her fiction and nonfiction has appeared in more than forty literary journals and anthologies from Shebnandoah and The Massachusetts Review to storySouth, and Notre Dame Review (Melissa).
Writers are for the most part very much alike because they tend to follow the same styles and organizational platforms. The Great Electrical Revolution is a short story that demonstrates the effects of moving to a new country, as well as the different struggles that people are guaranteed to face when doing so. In the story the main character moves to Saskatchewan for the opportunity to farm but discovers that he has agoraphobia, which is the fear of wide open spaces. He is forced to live in the city because of his condition, and as a result of this he picks up the hobby of stealing the city’s electricity. Whale Rider is a film that demonstrates the difficulty of being a women and constantly not being good enough for
Whale Rider shows a range of themes like tradition, rituals and the rights, gender stereotype, relationships between people, relationship with the environment, loss and death, legend of the warrior and family. This is all important in the film because it can teach us what the Maori culture is like, and also what’s right and wrong.
Have you seen beached whales? These massive creatures strand themselves on the beach, alone or in a group, the whims of the moon’s tidal forces. Sometimes, a single whale trapped by the moon’s pull calls in distress, drawing the sympathy of the whole pod, a case of symphony dooming the whole community stranded on the beach to a slow death. In “Why we care about whales”, Marina Keegan writes about witnessing fifty or so stranded pilot whales “lying along the stretch of beach in front of her house, surrounded by frenzied neighbors and animal activists” (35,36). Like the others, she jumped in to help—a futile task which finally led to “23 pairs of whale eyes glazed over” (32,33). Keegan suggests that despite the logic that human welfares are more important than animals’, emotions of compassion towards animals blind us from(better words) feeling the fragility of human suffering near or far away from us. She herself couldn’t think philosophically in the present of dying whales. The ambiguity of her thoughts reveals the paradox between logic and emotion. (unfinished)
Every culture has it’s own traditions and many of the times these traditions are broken when new generations are born. In the film Whale Rider depicts a culture in transition. The Maori, the native Polynesian people of New Zealand, are looking for a male descendant of Paikea the brave leader who escaped death on the back of a whale to lead them and restore the traditions. Koro Pai’s grandfather has been waiting for the first born of the new generation who should be chief. Unfortunately the tradition was broken when Pai’s twin brother passes away. What Koro does not understand is that Pai is the leader everyone has been waiting for.
A hero is someone who will attempt everything in their power to help others and risk everything they have to help others. In the movie, The Whale Rider, you can clearly see all the elements of The Hero’s Journey. A young girl named Paula Apirana, is living in a small village with her grandparents. Paika’s dad, who is living in Spain, returns to see Paula and proposes that she should come live with him. She declines the offer and decided to stay with her grandparents. Paula then secretly tries to learn the important ritual, that only males are allowed to learn. Her grandpa, Paka, gets extremely angry at her until he realizes that she is the “chosen one” to perform the ritual. Paika goes through many difficult challenges, however she manages
Niki Caro’s acclaimed film, Whale Rider, is an aspiring story of a young Maori girl’s pursuit to prove herself to her grandfather and to undertake her destiny as the tribal leader. Her grandfather, Chief of Whangara has old-fashioned attitudes that blind him to his granddaughter’s potential as his successor. It is only when tragedy strikes that Pai can prove to her grandfather that her community’s link with the spiritual world of the Maori lives on. The emphasis on Maori culture and myth allow us to classify Whale Rider as a film that shows the protagonist, Pai, being unable "go home" and to understand it through a connection between myth, culture, and family.
Families play an important role in shaping individuals and through them it also shapes the whole society. But what does the term traditional family mean and who decides what constitutes a traditional family? According to Merriam-Webster (2011), the definition of a nuclear or traditional family means “a family group that consists only of father, mother, and children”.
A famous myth of the Maori people is that of their great ancestor Paikea who rides a whale all the way to the island of New Zealand. Thus the name Paikea and whales have become sacred entities of Maori culture. The movie Whale Rider, directed by Niki Caro, describes a Maori girl given this blessed name Paikea, and her journey to find her place in the world. The only way she can finally be accepted in their society is by completing her role as a representation of her ancestor. The director symbolizes Paikea’s coming of age by showing her struggle to be accepted and riding a whale like the famous Maori myth—and simultaneously fitting into her predetermined role.
Family is the most important thing in the world a single word, with many different meaning. As the backbone of society family plays an important role in who an individual can be. The family can determine the class of an individual, the education level, and their religion. There are different types of families that have existed and some that are still present today. In the past the nuclear family was the ideal model. The nuclear family also called domesticity is characterized as, women being responsible for keeping the home and children and men being the breadwinner. It is two adults living together in a household with their own or adopted children. Another type of family is the extended family. The extended family is defined as a family group consisting of more than two generation of relatives living either within the same household or very close to one another. Grandparents, aunts, and in-laws are examples of extended families.