Sons For The Return Home
By Albert Wendt
The main themes seen in Sons For The Return Home are identity, racisim and social and sexual consciousness.
I enjoyed reading this novel, with its love story between Sione and New Zealand raised Samoan and Sarah a middle class Papalagi it also made me understand a bit more what it must be like for immigrants coming to New Zealand and trying to fit in being a different skin colour and in a completely different environment.
Sione's family migrate to Wellington, New Zealand for economic reasons, always planning on returning to Samoa having more made money in New Zealand. They in fact end up staying for in New Zealand for years. Sarah and Sione's family both feel ethnical and cultural superiority over one another. "Because they humiliate you,' he said to his mother. 'We've been here for nearly thirteen years and they still treat us as strangers. As inferiors.' (Albert Wendt 1973, p.13)
There was racisim in the novel, but is funny because although Sarah and Sione joke with one another about being from a different culture they still love one another a lot. "Is it because most of them are white? Pakeha? Rasist. True. Very true. They turned me into one. God, how you must despise me. I'm pakeha, in case you're colour-blind." (Wendt 1973, p.
"They called him a 'dirty coconut Islander,' and when he beat up the kids who called him that, the Principal-the same condescending man who refused to call you by your names today-caned him in front of the whole school and called him 'brainless Islander who should be deported back to the Islands." Have you forgotten that?' (Wendt, 1973 p.14)
These quotes show the misunderstanding and racisim upon two cultures.
"He knew his father was feeling uncomfortably small with the papalagi crowd watching, so he embraced him, acknowledging to all of them that he was proud of this small shy man" (Wendt, 1973 p.15) I believe this quote shows the social consciousness, with Sione's father feeling be littled in front of the Papalagi's. He was aware of Papalagi seeing and watching him support his son playing rugby and felt uncomfortable in their presence.
The best points in the novel for me were, for one, when Sione and his family are travelling by boat to New Zealand and his father witnesses two men having sex. It signified to me that he is thinking that his conservative family are about to enter a anti-conventional country.
Another for me was when the two boys save an old Papalagi man who is seen picking up rubbish and is beaten up by young Papalagi boys, and their disbelief that an elder could be treated like this. "The old man was whimpering into his hands. Reaching down, the older boy patted him gently on the shoulder. 'No, please,' the old man whined, cringing closer to the ground, without looking up. (Wendt, 1973 p.29)
Also when Sione is made to kill the pig at a feast and goes through a lot of different emotions. I found it amusing when they meet a Maori woman and the difference in the Maori New Zealanders and the Pakeha New Zealanders. "You're not a hori, are you fella?' the woman asked. He shook his head. 'I can tell every time,' she said, more to the girl than to him. 'How?' the girl asked. The woman looked at him and winked. 'Hell, he don't look like a Hori. He's to serious. We horis, we laugh and joke all the time..." (Wendt, 1973 p.104) Sione in this part also talks about how his mother refers to the same sort of thing with Samoa and Samoans.
This also shows, I believe, that there is racism and cultural authority among cultures who call the same country home.
I enjoyed reading this novel. And like this quote.
"I miss that ugly, cruel city, with its insatiable roots stabbed into the earth, choking it; breathing all its poisons into the sky; its blood contaminating the people and turning them against one another in perpetual combat which no one ever wins." (Wendt, 1973 p.209)
I enjoyed reading this novel, with its love story between Sione and New Zealand raised Samoan and Sarah a middle class Papalagi it also made me understand a bit more what it must be like for immigrants coming to New Zealand and trying to fit in being a different skin colour and in a completely different environment.
Sione's family migrate to Wellington, New Zealand for economic reasons, always planning on returning to Samoa having more made money in New Zealand. They in fact end up staying for in New Zealand for years. Sarah and Sione's family both feel ethnical and cultural superiority over one another. "Because they humiliate you,' he said to his mother. 'We've been here for nearly thirteen years and they still treat us as strangers. As inferiors.' (Albert Wendt 1973, p.13)
There was racisim in the novel, but is funny because although Sarah and Sione joke with one another about being from a different culture they still love one another a lot. "Is it because most of them are white? Pakeha? Rasist. True. Very true. They turned me into one. God, how you must despise me. I'm pakeha, in case you're colour-blind." (Wendt 1973, p.
"They called him a 'dirty coconut Islander,' and when he beat up the kids who called him that, the Principal-the same condescending man who refused to call you by your names today-caned him in front of the whole school and called him 'brainless Islander who should be deported back to the Islands." Have you forgotten that?' (Wendt, 1973 p.14)
These quotes show the misunderstanding and racisim upon two cultures.
"He knew his father was feeling uncomfortably small with the papalagi crowd watching, so he embraced him, acknowledging to all of them that he was proud of this small shy man" (Wendt, 1973 p.15) I believe this quote shows the social consciousness, with Sione's father feeling be littled in front of the Papalagi's. He was aware of Papalagi seeing and watching him support his son playing rugby and felt uncomfortable in their presence.
The best points in the novel for me were, for one, when Sione and his family are travelling by boat to New Zealand and his father witnesses two men having sex. It signified to me that he is thinking that his conservative family are about to enter a anti-conventional country.
Another for me was when the two boys save an old Papalagi man who is seen picking up rubbish and is beaten up by young Papalagi boys, and their disbelief that an elder could be treated like this. "The old man was whimpering into his hands. Reaching down, the older boy patted him gently on the shoulder. 'No, please,' the old man whined, cringing closer to the ground, without looking up. (Wendt, 1973 p.29)
Also when Sione is made to kill the pig at a feast and goes through a lot of different emotions. I found it amusing when they meet a Maori woman and the difference in the Maori New Zealanders and the Pakeha New Zealanders. "You're not a hori, are you fella?' the woman asked. He shook his head. 'I can tell every time,' she said, more to the girl than to him. 'How?' the girl asked. The woman looked at him and winked. 'Hell, he don't look like a Hori. He's to serious. We horis, we laugh and joke all the time..." (Wendt, 1973 p.104) Sione in this part also talks about how his mother refers to the same sort of thing with Samoa and Samoans.
This also shows, I believe, that there is racism and cultural authority among cultures who call the same country home.
I enjoyed reading this novel. And like this quote.
"I miss that ugly, cruel city, with its insatiable roots stabbed into the earth, choking it; breathing all its poisons into the sky; its blood contaminating the people and turning them against one another in perpetual combat which no one ever wins." (Wendt, 1973 p.209)
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