Throughout history, authors have used poetry as a way to express themselves and how they think or feel in an artistic way. There have been poems written about almost every feeling a person has ever had which is why poetry is so popular, because it describes feelings in a way many people cannot. In present day, people from all around the world look back at old poetry and try to define the true meanings behind poems using literally elements and context clues to aid them, this is known as explication. The writing named “Boat of Cypress” is a famous poem written long ago by an unknown author, and composed about a woman full of misery and despair from her personal point of view. Throughout this poem, the readers
Niki Caro’s film, Whale Rider, beautifully captures the small village of Whangara, which is located in the northeast of New Zealand’s North Island. The film portrays a Maori tribe that tells the story of a long-held tradition. This film is rich in symbolism, which is easy for any viewer to understand. Whale Rider does a wonderful job of capturing the attention of the audience because of the intense and close relationships between the characters, the way Caro conveys the movie’s message, and the features the movie offers.
When choosing a film for this assignment, my original choice was Bend It Like Beckham because I had heard of it and I had a general idea what it was about. I then decided that I wanted to take on a more challenging film, one that I had never heard of, and one that I would really have to study to understand its full meaning. After looking into a few of the listed movies, I ended up choosing Whale Rider, a drama filmed in New Zealand in 2002. After watching the movie two times, I feel that I now understand some of the more drastic cultural and gender based problems that are occurring today.
In his essay, “Very Like a Whale”, Robert Finch believe that humans have the needs to confront nature, or “otherness” in the world. Finch’s important claims was recollection of the time when he had witnessed a dead corpse of a carcass washed up on shore at Corporation Beach. His claims progress as the first constructs his essay by discussing the most valuable encounter with “otherness” which is the dead whale. The author emphasizes on the claims that he had. Robert Finch wanted to find the reasons why society was so interested and curious about getting a load of sightseeing at a dead whale. The author emphasizes that the corpse had broken, in essence of his own argument, “the normal human pattern”(100). He laid a foundation background
Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp is an essay written by Joy Williams, about the overwhelming complacency that todays culture shows towards nature.Williams argues in a very satirical way, that todays culture has all but completely lost touch with what nature really is, and that unless we as a nation change our morals regarding the role that nature plays in human existence, we may very well be witnessing the dawn of our own destruction.
For years the killer whale, also known as Orcinus orca, has been drawing the attention of the public through the entertainment industry. These marine mammals have been bringing in billions of dollars to amusement parks such as Sea World, but at what cost? An idea that these killer whales can live happily and content while in captivity may be going through the minds of the public, but this cannot be further away from the truth. To have such complex creatures in captivity is not morally correct and there are many points against it, such as their level of emotional competence, violence between the killer whales, violence of killer of whales towards trainers, shorter lifespans, physical harm, and their level of intelligence. After taking a look at how these creatures function and the conditions they are put in while in captivity, there is no question about whether or not these mammals should be kept in captivity; an experience such as this affects these marine mammals just about the same as it would affect a human because of their high highly developed emotions and complexity. Since these industries do not have a natural authority over these creatures no matter the cause, the best thing they could do for these killer whales is to stop capturing them and return those who are capable back to the wild.
The Whale Rider by Niki Caro is a film about a young girl, Paikea’s journey to acceptance from her grandfather. This film explores many themes such as feminism, family and conflict. One of the main conflicts explored throughout this film is the conflict between Nanny Flowers and Koro, Paikea’s grandparents. Conflict is an important issue in this film because it causes rupture among an already fractured family.
Throughout “Whale Rider” Paikea is expected to listen to what her grandpa tells her to do and say. Personally, Paikea feels conflicted and under pressure to stick to her grandpas rules, as she wants to go her own way. Her grandpa finds it hard to see Paikea as her own person and can’t accept modernity, which he is not used to. He also stops her from learning the ways of a Maori chief, which is something she still tries to do in secret with the help of the rest of her family. Koro sometimes fails to see what Paikea can do, as he feels very strongly about old traditions, but other times he sees what she can do and fails to appreciate it. Paikea just wants to be loved and accepted by her grandfather and her strong sense of leadership and determination to get that from him leaves her as a role model to others to be brave and to never stop until they get what they want.
As predicted the stadium was packed full, leaving a handful of places to sit up front near the band and cheerleaders. She gave Capri that look, the rightful glance that screamed ' I told you so.' She would have been more mad, but she happened to like the marching band for the most part, so sitting by them was not as terrible as it is for most. Plus, Alix Hale just asked her out on a date, how could she let herself be brought down. Not to mention the greasy intoxicating smell of something fried and fattening beckoning her to spread all her money on one morsel of food to shove down her throat.
In the 2002 epic film, Whale Rider, Niki Caro intended it to deliver the message that females are empowering individuals that can counter the “male gaze”. The film revolves around the life of an 11 year old girl, who wants to gain the approval of her grandfather and assume the role of being a tribe leader that her late twin brother was destined to be. From an early age, Paikea was disciplined, as evidenced by her objection towards smoking. When she finds her grandmother’s friends smoking at the table, she informs them that they should stop smoking to maintain their reproductive integrity. In school plays, Paikea is always the center of the group. She even won a speech contest for the East Region of New Zealand. Caro presented Paikea as an independent and strong minded individual who had the ambition to
The Fish is a narrative monologue composed for 76 free-verse lines. The poem is constructed as one long stanza. The author is the speaker narrating this poem. She narrates a fishing experience. The author is out in a rented boat on a body of water, presumably a lake. She tries to describe the fish to the fullest, which appears to be the purpose of the poem, without saying either the specie or an approximate age. The narration gives the impression that the fish is slightly old. There are a number of reasons as to why that fish got caught by the author, including time of day, the weeds weighing it down, fish’s age, and the fact that it has been previously caught five times.
The story of Whale Rider takes place in a Maori village in New Zealand. The main character is a 12 year old girl name Paikea “Pai” Apirana and her ambition to become the next Chief of her village. Along with following on Pai’s story, the movie showed a great number of local Maori religion and culture. Some of the things I will explore is the Maori religion, gender roles, and a personal reflection on what was learned through the movie.
This book really grabbed me right from the beginning of the story. The story begins with the birth of fraternal twins, with the grandfather patiently awaiting the birth of the son. Right away I felt sadness when the mother and one of the twins die. The boy dies and the girl survives. The grandpa seems to not care about the girl who survived . He was longing for his grandson because he is from the Maori tribe and the tribe is waiting for the sign of a new chief to be born . The chief would lead the village and its community to greatness. Many elders have been born but none with the strength to be the next chief. The little girl was named Pai. The grandma of Pai took her home to raise her along with the grandfather. The grandfather showed
The film, Whale Rider, released in 2003 and directed by Niki Caro, is essentially about a young 12-year-old girl called Paikea who faces hardships whilst discovering who she truly is among cultural misogyny in a Maori tribe situated in New Zealand. Misogyny is the dislike and adamant prejudice of women by men and is usually caused unconsciously by a trigger from an obstructive encounter with women in the past. This was an issue in the film as traditionally, the chief roles were ascended upon the males, and if anyone challenged this practice, they would be disobeying the ancestors, thus being dubbed as 'disloyal'. The theme portrayed in my visual representation is Female role models and Misogyny as I believe that the Whale Rider describes what
The Maori, “Children of Heaven”, are the indigenous people of New Zealand. It has been thought that Polynesian navigator Kupe, discovered New Zealand in 950 AD, and named the island Aotearoa, “Land of the long white cloud”.1 The Maori migrated to New Zealand from the tropical islands of