A Literary Anaysis of Patricia Grace's "letters from Whetu"

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The fourth, and final letter is written to Andy, the friend of the group who left school to kill sheep for a living, also who Whetu seems to have a bit of a crush on. This is evident because in her letter to Lenny, Whetu states that “Andy looks great” which is an obvious sign of affection and admiration. Also in her last letter to Andy she signs off with the words “yours 4 eva”. Andy seems to be a strong spirited and brave person because he walked out of school when he had enough and went to work as a sheep abbatoir.

In all the letters, I could see more and more of Whetu’s identity as a girl, stuck in a system and longing to get out, and also, I see her identity as a Maori person. I believe the most hints towards Whetu’s Maori identity is in the first letter to Lenny. The Maori people are the native people of New Zealand, like the First Nations and the Inuit are to Canada. These people have received multiple pressures from the white New Zealanders. I have done research to support my statements about how Whetu is pressured and in some ways assimilated. In the first letter to Lenny, written in English class, Whetu makes some statements about not wanting to conform to the society and what other people want her to be. This can be seen as simply a teenager who is about to graduate is worried about the future, but if you were to dig a little deeper, there are clues that emphasise Whetu’s Maori heritage and struggles. Whetu makes it obvious she is a teachers “pet” to the English teacher (Fisher), whom she likes to annoy. Whetu continuously uses slang and misspells words throughout the letter and brings up a time she had gotten in trouble with the teacher for using the wrong plural word for “you”. “I sometimes do a bit of a stir with Fisher, like I say 'yous' instead of 'you' (pl.)” (Ahmed, 2007, p. 167). Whetu also mixes some Maori words into the letters. She constantly resists and annoys the teacher by doing these things to resist assimilation, that makes her like everybody else, in this sense I mean the Paheka (white New Zealanders). Beston best voices the ideas of assimilation inside this story by highlighting that if Whetu continues down the education path, she could become just an “honourable statistic”. Whetu graduating and going on to a “regular” job would support the idea of assimilation and racism towards the Maori people (n.d., p. 45). Patricia Grace’s style of writing gives us a small window to the identity of the Maori people. The rest of the digging is done by the reader. Grace attempts to give readers an inside look into the Maori life by portraying the ordinary, everyday life of a person, in this story, it is Whetu, who gives us windows to the Maori identity she holds (Bardolph, 1990, p. 29).

Whetu shows anxiety towards accrediting day primarily in her letter to Lenny. She explains how people go into a machine to become well educated and get good jobs and are somehow supposed to be fulfilled. Whetu shows that she would not really be fulfilled with that multiple times in the story by recalling the past often. Whetu highlights three courses or “roads” she could take in her life. The first is being the perfect Maori student who graduates and becomes assimilated into getting a regular job for regular people. The second is the Maori path, and following in her parent's footsteps and becoming a part of Maori politics and affairs, which would cause some sacrifice. The third being a lifetime of fun and being with her friends but would risk a future of aimlessness. Taking the road of the Maori graduate or even the road of hanging out with her friends could lead to pressures from the Paheka people to leave her Maori identity behind. In both of these choices, Whetu must make a personal sacrifice of her dignity as a Maori person. (Beston, n.d., p. 45). Not only would Whetu be sacrificing her Maori identity if she chooses this first road, she also might not see much of her friends if she goes on to get a secure but unfulfilling office job. This is evident because Whetu makes it obvious about the fact that she loves her friends very much. When she keeps recalling “last Sunday” to each friend and saying what she loved about it, the dancing, the singing, and the sun going down. She would miss her best friend Ani, her good friend Lenny, she couldn’t be there to protect Iosefa or make sure he is safe, and she knows how much she misses Andy now that he has moved away.

In Whetu’s first letter, Whetu sarcastically explains the school system and accrediting day in a nutshell, “See. . . it seems we get put through this machine so that we can come out well-educated and so we can get interesting jobs. I think it's supposed to make us better than some other people like our mothers and fathers for example, and some of our friends. And somehow it's supposed to make us happier and more FULFILLED. Well I dunno.” (Ahmed, 2007, p. 166-167). This shows her not wanting the first path as a future, because she talks about is so cynically. The second path could also not fulfill Whetu in the way she hopes a future would. In Whetu’s letter to Sef, she briefly explains to her friend that this is not what she wants, but it is what hr parents want, “I mean Mum and Dad have all these IDEAS, they're both getting their THRILLS over my education and I reckon I'll be sitting behind a desk FOREVER”. If Whetu chooses this path, her parents would be pleased, but Whetu knows, and the reader knows this is not truly what she wants because of language used and her emotions through capitalized words as well as sarcasm. The third path, at this point in time in Whetu’s life seems to be what she wants, hanging out with her friends and enjoying being young. There are drawbacks of course, which may not be visible to Whetu yet. This path could lead to a future of drug issues, as Whetu highlights in her letter to Andy that people her age are buying pot and snuffing glue, which could become an issue in the future if she chooses the third path which could lead to aimlessness.

Conclusion

There are many options in life, some more drastic than others. Most options we choose have an alteration to our true identity in the outcome, the choice we make can change us forever. In Patricia Grace’s short story Letters from Whetu, Whetu, a young Maori girl is faced with three “roads” she could take. All three choices will, in some way, alter her identity, either as a Maori citizen or just as a young achieving girl. The letters, all in different ways give us windows to who Whetu is and who her friends are as well. It is up to the reader to interpret and understand who these people are.

References

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