Alan Duff's Once Were Warriors -- Leading Questions
Members of English 27, Brown University, 1997
1. Duff uses Joycean style, pschyco-realist, train-of-thought narration in Once
Were Warriors. This style allows the reader to envision the "Maori
sub-culture" from the point of view of Beth Heke. The story of this one
family presents some important psycological perspectives of cutural
disempowerment among Maori people of New Zealand. "These are my people. I
love em. Or so she forced upon herself" (6). The theme of self-hate seems
to prevade the narration like an unresolved threat. Beth refers to the
people of the Pine Block as "mirrors of her own existence" (1). Many times
she feels like at "traitor in her own midst because of her thoughts so
often turned to disgust, disapproval, shame, and sometimes anger, even
hate" (2). Does Beth ever resolve this self-hate? How can we see
Grace and the other children dealing with their own feelings of disapproval
regarding their community and their family? [Brandon Brown]
2. Duff has two chapters entitled "They Who Have History." Repeatedly he
reminds us that the Maori have a history, yet they lack a history. In what
ways does the funeral exemplify the past and present, this struggle with
history? Duff employs the term history in many different ways in the novel:
"History. (He's got history, Grace and Boogie Heke, and you ain't.)" (29)
"He is saying Beth, that we are what we are only because of our past. .
. and that we should never forget our past or our future is lost. . .Beth
wondering if perhaps that was what ailed her people: their lack of
knowledge of the past. A history." (118)
"Oh, aren't (they) we a together race when (they) we're like this?
History, that's what they are. They are history and therefore so are we,
and who needs anything else when you got the strength of history
supporting ya?" (121)
Why do the pronouns continually shift from first to second person in these quotations and in the titles as well?
[Kate Cook]
3. In Once Were Warriors Duff focuses
on the difference between
inside and outside, represented by the characters' inner dialogues that
often do not match their actions, the motif of doors between disparate
worlds (the waiting room and the courtroom (30), the street and McClutchy's
(54)), and the depiction of cultural belonging (between and within Anglo,
Maori, and Chinese cultures). How do narrative technique, language, and
the motif of mirrors, or mirroring, relate to this dichotomy? [Erica
Dillon]
4a. Geographies, landscapes, boundaries, and spaces have functioned as
metaphors for border crossings, cultural collisions, and colonial
relationships. Once Were Warriors begins with a description of home that
clearly establishes the physical separation between the Maori in government
housing, "two storey, side-by-side misery boxes" and the big house next
door, spacious and secure in "rolling green pastureland" (1).
At the courthouse and McClutchy's bar, doors close, defining the separation between two different worlds. Driving to a Maori bar, Jake and Dool drive through Pakeha and Maori neighborhoods.
"They're like strangers--they are strangers, to most Maori I know. May as
well be from another country the contact the two races have" (37). The act
as if from different countries (compare to Sour Sweet).
Compare the intersection of physical and psychological divisions in the
texts-- are there differences among the texts in which characters cross
borders, in which racial miscegenation occurs, and in which the story
unfolds in one nation?
4b. Compare luck in Sour Sweet and Once Were Warriors (11, 15). In Sour
Sweet luck was connected to tradition and superstition. Is there also a
relation between luck and colonization in these texts? (a lack of personal
control, self-determination given more powerful forces).
4c. How does the pride Jake feels for his people, who have soul, rhythm, and
passion (52, 53) compare to Lily's cultural pride (and arrogance, sense of
superiority)?
5. What effect does Alan Duff achieve by writing "People doing scenes all
over. All ov-ah" (66), and even spelling (sumpthin, or fuckim), in the
vernacular? How does the juxtaposition of a highly perceptive (consider
the interpretations of emotions, feelings, such as "the way men of violence
defer to those they know or perceive as their physical betters" (54)),
omniscient narrator with frequent vernacular narration affect the reader's
experience of Once Were Warriors? [Jeremy Finer]
6. Just as Grace climbs the brick wall to see the other world of white
people, Alan Duff breaks down a wall to let the reader see the postcolonial
Maori world. Does the reader become a trespasser into the raw world of the
Maori people? Are we invading their world just as the English invaded two
hundred ears before? How do notions of territory and boundaries come to
play? Look at the brick wall dividing the Hekes from the Tramberts, Jake's
ownership of McClutchy's bar. How does Beth spy on her own people? [Laura
Gelfman]
7. "Jake winking at her. Beth hoping it meant what she thought it did. Careful
not to wink back because he didn't like the woman to be the instigator of
that particular activity, nosiree he didn't. Sex was a man's choice first
and foremost; in fact, a woman was careful she didn't show she enjoyed it
too much or it made Jake wild, he'd start asking questions, or sulk, or not
touch her for another month. But she had her ways of reaching her objective
without Jake knowing she'd reached such a height."(14) Duff's book is filled with sexuality. Does the attitude surrounding
sexuality, especially that of women, correlate with other aspects of the
Maori culture? Why or why not? [Phoebe Koch]
8. Compare the position of women in Maori society as depicted by Duff to
Emecheta's portrayal of the subjugation of women in Nigeria. According to
Duff, does this situation exist as a result of problems in modern day Maori
society or is it an intrinsic feature of the Maori culture of old? [Jennifer Gin Lee]
"Luck. A woman wasn't so sure about this luck business that it was really
luck and not just plain hard work, self-motivation." (15)
"The magistrate was wishing Mark luck -- luck. Asking for the next case. Just like that." (29)
Whether the situation at hand involves Jake beating Beth, Boog being
placed in a foster home, or the difference between life in Pine Block and
the Trambert house on the hill, Beth and Grace seem to consider the concept
of luck ludicrous. What does this outlook imply about women? Maoris?
Whites? [Laura Otis]
9. Jake feels oppressed by Maori culture as well as Pakeha culture, and it
is upon revealing this conflict that Beth observes that "Us Maoris used
to practice slavery just like those poor negroes used to endure in
America... Yet to read the newspapers, on the TV every damn day, you'd
think we're descended from a packa angels, and it's the Pakeha who's the
devil. Clicking her tongue: just shows, we're all good and we're all
bad" [97]. How do the solutions offered by the pinstriped "Maori
priest" deal with the complicated heritage of the Pine Block Maoris?
[Elora Lee-Raymond]
10. Consider the passage:
The hell you mean, Maori way? You call yourselves Maoris? ...Can any of
us in this room speak the language? What do we know of our
culture?...She told them the Maori of old had a culture, and he had
pride, and he had warriorhood, not this bullying man-hitting-wornan
shet, you call that manhood? It's not manhood, and it sure as hell
ain't Maori manhood. So ask yourselves what you are. (22)What statement is Duff making about culture and colonization in this
passage? Is it possible for a community not to have a culture? Is Duff
insinuating that the dysfunctional subculture of Pine Block is a
responce to the void left by the British stripping of pre-colonial
Maori culture? [Uzoma Ukomadu]
