She blew his mouth and nostrils, and with two fingers lightly massaged his chest until the mucus began to drain freely. She took a pendant from her ear and put it on the blanket beside him. ‘Tokowaru-i-te-Marama. Ko Tokowaru-i-te-Marama te ingoa o tenei,’ she said. (Grace 36)
The passage above comes from the book Potiki. It’s when granny Tamihana breathes life into Toko and gives him the name of her deceased brother. In Potiki, a novel written by Patricia Grace, we are introduced to a family that is given a special gift. That gift is in a form of a child named Toko. Toko isn’t any ordinary child for he knows all his past stories and has the ability to see future stories. Toko was born by Mary and is cared for by Mary’s brother Hemi and his wife Roimata. In yet another novel, there is a strong presence of mythological icons being incorporated into a book. Grace ties the legend of Maui into the character of Toko. Toko and Maui were both born prematurely. Another similarity Grace ties in with the legend of Maui is the fishing story. Maui goes out fishing with his brothers and brags that he’ll catch a bigger fish than his brothers and Toko’s fishing with his family in the lagoon and catches a big eel. Lastly, Grace links the legend of Maui’s death to Toko’s death. In Potiki, Toko enters the wharenui to bring back Manu who was sleepwalking. Instead a gunshot was heard and Toko was killed. In the legend of Maui, Maui tried to capture death by trying to crawl into the death goddess “hidden source of life” to capture her heart. A bird laughs, which woke the death goddess and closed her mouth. The teeth of the death goddess cut Maui in the center and killed him.
According to Westervelt, “Maui may mean “to live,” to subsists,” and may refer to beauty and strength, or it may have the idea of “the left hand” or “turning aside. (1)” In Potiki, Grace ties in the meaning of Maui to the character Toko. In what way is the birth of Toko and Maui similar and it’s relationship with Westervelt’s definition of Maui? How is Toko’s fishing story similar with the legend of Maui pulling the island of New Zealand and its relationship with Westervelt’s definition of Maui? How is the death of Toko similar to the way Maui dies and how it relates to the definition of Maui?
One thing everyone can agree on is that Tekakwitha’s father, mother, and brother died of small pox when she was only four. She did not escape death’s grips unscathed, the disease disfigured her face and her eyesight was impaired. In Native American culture, it is not uncommon to earn your name from characteristics, so it is believed that Tekakwitha can be translated to “One Who Bumps Into Things”, as stated on page 18 of Emily Cavins’s Lily of the Mohawks.
The book “Power” by Linda Hogan is very rich with literary devices like juxtapositions, foreshadowing, symbolism, and personification. It is about a Taiga Native American named Omishto, who sees a Taiga woman named Ama, kill an endangered Florida panther. Omishto, whose name means “the one who watches”, starts viewing Ama as something bigger than herself. The image of Ama is represented as an animal, power, and spirituality.
As the audience already knows that there are many tales that are told in the story. These stories are the base for what has to come later in the sections. These stories have lessons and hidden meanings that will show through the mothers and daughters. For example, the first part of the book is “Feathers from a Thousand Li Away” is intended to teach the reader about hope, which is symbolized by the swan. One of the mothers in the story has a feather from the swan and in hopes, one day give it to her daughter and tell her the struggles that the family had to go through to have a better life. This wish is a very difficult one to come true because of a
She begins talking about her childhood and who raised her until she was three years old. The woman who raised her was Thrupkaew’s “auntie”, a distant relative of the family. The speaker remembers “the thick, straight hair, and how it would come around [her] like a curtain when she bent to pick [her] up” (Thrupkaew). She remembers her soft Thai accent, the way she would cling to her auntie even if she just needed to go to the bathroom. But she also remembers that her auntie would be “beaten and slapped by another member of my family. [She] remembers screaming hysterically and wanting it to stop, as [she] did every single time it happened, for things as minor as…being a little late” (Thrupkaew). She couldn’t bear to see her beloved family member in so much pain, so she fought with the only tool she had: her voice. Instead of ceasing, her auntie was just beaten behind closed doors. It’s so heart-breaking for experiencing this as a little girl, her innocence stolen at such a young age. For those who have close family, how would it make you feel if someone you loved was beaten right in front of you? By sharing her story, Thrupkaew uses emotion to convey her feelings about human
The novel opens with the imagery and symbolism that is essential effectively telling the story. A grown Louise imagines the ferry ride to Rass Island she will soon take to pick up her newly widowed mother. The only way on and off the island, the ferry represents more than transportation, it is a lifeline between ...
“And though she breathes the way we breathe, with scarcely perceptible movements of her chest, sometimes instead she pumps her throat ruminatively, like a pipe smoker sucking and puffing.”
She tells the story of an elderly blind woman whom is known and respected in her community for her wisdom and knowledge. Morrison explains that "Among her people [the old woman] is both the law and its transgression" (Morrison 1993). On one occasion, the woman is approached by some young people who are intent on taking advantage of her blindness. They say, "Old woman, I hold in my hand a bird. Tell me whether it is living or dead." After some time the woman replies, "I don't know. I don't know whether the bird you are holding is dead or alive, but what I do know is that it is in your hands. It is in your hands." (Morrison 1993)
...er screaming in agony as she watched the horror unfold at sea. As her tears fell down her cheeks she recalled the gitano’s prophecy. ‘My love is gone, my father has been taken, I am forsaken’ she exclaimed and wept.
Through time it has been said that a parent’s love is a magical thing, without it a child would not develop correctly. In the novel “The Jar” by Isak Dinesen, the readers are introduced to the lovely characters Lady Helen and the old Englishman, also known as Helen’s Papa. Lady Helen and Papa traveled the sea to numerous lands looking for her father’s beloved ‘ancient blue china’. On a steady night travelling the Chinese sea, their ship caught on fire. Lady Helen and a young sailor was abandoned by her father and his crew with no supplies, but a forgotten lifeboat; allowing them to escape the fire and sail the sea for 9 days until rescued. At this moment, the townspeople found that Helene’s mind suffered from her journey and now, like her father, she cared for nothing but to
“Easy, Ji-hye, easy,” Unti chuckles, tightening his grip on her as he walks on over to Su’s bedside. When he speaks again, his voice has fallen to a mere whisper. “And try to keep your voice down, the baby’s ears are sensitive.”
Marcel bit his lower lip as he closed his eyes, trying to remember where he had set down Cammi. Those two...this fog that might as well have been a massive blanket...this day! A deep breath in. A deep breath out. The silence crouched over to huddle down with the family.
Miscommunication and misconstrued intentions can happen when familial divides are prominent. Highlighting this concept, Tan states, “for a long time now the woman wanted to give her daughter the single swan feather and tell her, ‘This feather may look worthless, but it comes for afar and carries with it all of my good intentions’” (Tan 3). All mother’s contain aspirations reflecting upon children, but detachment inhibits the immeasurable pressure felt from reaching children. However, the appearance of worthlessness may overshadow underlying ideals mothering generations seek. Providing the feather reveals love and care a mother longs to provide for her daughter, “the feather stands for the meaning of a mother’s life that she is desperate to convey to her daughter; the daughter, for her part, must, for reasons of her own, turn away and retreat” (Bloom). The tale demonstrates disconnect’s challenges as one may initiate conversation, whereas, another speaker may shut down. Truthful to humanity, people miss the “feather” of hopes parents desire to share. The feather wives tale told, expresses a realistic circumstances all parents face when connecting with children. Furthermore, when displaying familial pride, “I will use the sharp pain to penetrate my daughter’s tough skin and cut her tiger spirit loose. She will fight me, because this is the nature of two tigers. But I will win and give her my spirit, because this is
In the book, he uses imagery to describe the scenery around him and his neighborhood. “Above, the surface of the water was a green mirror. And the pearl lay on the floor of the sea...And the music of the pearl drifted to a whisper and disappeared (page 87)”. Thi part of the story explains when he gives up on the pearl and he realized
During the Meiji Restoration, the Japanese government annexed the Ryukyu Kingdom as part of the Okinawa Prefecture in 1879. The Senkaku Islands became the Sino-Japanese boundary between the Ryukyu Kingdom and the Qing empire. In 1885, the Japanese Governor of Okinawa, Nishimura Sutezo, asked the Meiji government to take control of the islands. However, Inoue Kaoru, the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, commented that the islands had been given Chinese names already. Yamagata Aritomo, the Minister of the Interior, eventually turned down the request to incorporate the islands after listening to Kaoru's advice. 50%
Ekwefi begins to question her fate when nine out of ten of her children die during infancy. After each one of her children are born, the names Ekwefi gives them are deeper in despair than the one proceeding. The first child being named Onwumbiko, meaning, “Death, I implore you” (77), suggests Ekwefi’s grief and shows her hope that maybe fate will