Spiralling Progression in the Short Stories and Novels of Patricia Grace Barbara Joyce Kinnane University of Wollongong

University of Wollongong Research Online University of Wollongong Thesis Collection University of Wollongong Thesis Collections 2014 Spiralling progression in the short stories and novels of Patricia Grace Barbara Joyce Kinnane University of Wollongong Recommended Citation Kinnane, Barbara Joyce, Spiralling progression in the short stories and novels of Patricia Grace, Doctor of Philosophy in English Literature thesis, School of the Arts, English and Media, University of Wollongong, 2014. http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/4177 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library: [email protected] SPIRALLING PROGRESSION IN THE SHORT STORIES AND NOVELS OF PATRICIA GRACE A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLISH LITERATURE from UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG by Barbara Joyce Kinnane Bachelor of Arts (Hons) School of the Arts, English & Media 2014 i THESIS CERTIFICATION I, Barbara J. Kinnane, declare that this thesis, submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy, in the School of Arts, English & Media, University of Wollongong, is wholly my own work unless otherwise referenced or acknowledged. The document has not been submitted for qualifications at any other academic institution. Barbara J. Kinnane 30 June 2014 ii ABSTRACT This thesis examines the nature of successive changes across the fictional output of Patricia Grace. Transformations are explored from three perspectives. One perspective is the relationship between Grace’s novels and collections of short stories. Each of Grace’s first four novels (Mutuwhenua, Potiki, Cousins, Baby No-Eyes) is preceded by a collection of short stories (Waiariki, The Dream Sleepers and other stories, Electric City and other stories, The Sky People). The thesis argues that there is an adaptive progression from each set of stories to the subsequent novel. In the appendix to this thesis is an interview I conducted with Grace in Wellington in 2009. In the interview, Grace acknowledged this creative link. The second aspect of progressive change occurs in Grace’s working with Māori concepts of change and transformation. The rich symbolism of the spiral and the recurrent motifs of plants and trees such as flax, ferns and the pohutukawa are analysed. This thesis shows that Māori mythology is an important subtext that is developed across Grace’s work. The term ‘given stories’ used in Potiki is a reference to this mythology as a whole, as explained by Grace in an email included in the appendix. The distinction that Grace draws between the earlier ‘given stories’ and the myth of Mutuwhenua is examined and analysed in regard to concepts of change. In her writings, Māori mythology is revealed to be a dynamic and living tradition that is shaped by everyday life. The third perspective on change is the relationship between Māori and Pakeha culture. A focus of this analysis is Grace’s engagement with the teachings, stories and mythology of Christianity. As such, there is an emphasis in this thesis on concepts of the sacred and spirituality. In Grace’s work this engagement with Christianity and the church occurs in the context of Māori mythology and everyday life. The inclusiveness evident in her novels and short stories is analysed using the postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha and his notions of hybridity and the third space. This is compared to its engagement with the writer and essayist Wilson Harris and his notion of the wholeness of vision emerging from the fragmentation of postcolonial societies. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my supervisor Associate Professor Paul Sharrad for his valuable advice and his patience over the years I have been juggling this thesis with work and family commitments. I acknowledge the special contribution of Associate Professor Anne Collett who played an important role in the final stage of this thesis and Dr Guy Davidson for his assistance with this supervision. My thanks go also to the executive of Edmund Rice College and in particular David Lear and Sam Tadros, who encouraged my interest by allowing me some flexibility of work hours so that I could undertake this research. Another person I wish to acknowledge is my uncle, Gordon King, whose financial legacy motivated me to make a change and to move for a time to part-time work so that I could pursue my interest in literature. I thank my husband Michael Beare for his encouragement, for not doubting that I would complete my thesis and for the many practical things that he did to support me during the process. I especially acknowledge my mother, Doris Kinnane, née King, who placed a great value upon the importance of education and always encouraged me not only to believe in myself but also to pursue this goal. I thank my father, William Henry Kinnane, for showing me the value of courage and love in the face of adversity. And finally I would like to thank Patricia Grace for her generosity in answering my questions about her writing. iv You can add up the parts but you won't have the sum You can strike up the march, there is no drum Every heart, every heart to love will come but like a refugee. Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack, a crack in everything That's how the light gets in. Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack, a crack in everything That's how the light gets in. That's how the light gets in. That's how the light gets in. (from Anthem by Leonard Cohen) To my mother In memory of my dear friend, Dagmar Booker v TABLE OF CONTENTS page Abstract iii Acknowledgements iv Table of Contents vi Introduction 1 Chapter One Waiariki 11 Mutuwhenua 34 Chapter Two The Dream Sleepers and Other Stories 52 Potiki 75 Chapter Three Electric City and Other Stories 105 Cousins 125 Chapter Four The Sky People 152 Baby No-Eyes 174 Conclusion 203 Appendices Appendix A Interview with Patricia Grace 208 Appendix B Email from Annette Wehi 229 Appendix C Email from Patricia Grace 230 Bibliography 231 vi INTRODUCTION Sometimes when I look at what people have written, I know that I would rather people were talking about ideas, language, or themes instead of thinking, ‘now I have to find out what’s postcolonial in there.’ Because ‘postcolonial’ does not mean anything to me really… I don’t write postcolonial writing according to me. I am just writing what I know about and bringing creativity to bear on that. Patricia Grace, Interview with P. Fresno-Calleja, 2003, p.115. Although Patricia Grace does not see herself as a ‘postcolonial’ writer, she writes in a postcolonial world and an important feature of her short stories and novels is the interaction between Māori and Pakeha culture. Beyond this, however, Grace’s work is driven by a deeper concern with a perception of the sacred and its significance to the development of human life. Her writing reaches back to a mythical world that predates the impact of the colonizing power and forward to a future imagined in the momentum of the spiral in a perception of timelessness. In contrast to the postcolonial analysis of the struggle of the colonized to regain control from the colonizing society, depicted in a linear time frame, the spiral represents a progression out an interaction of opposites. Eva Rask Knudsen describes its integration of the circular and the linear as representing a world that is both ‘revolving’ and ‘moving forward to the place it came from’ (2004, p.24). The focus of this thesis is an analysis of the sacred in Grace’s writing and how this is related to the notion of progression.Together with the spiral and Māori mythology, Grace’s vision of progression is revealed in relationship to nature. This is evident for example in the pattern of the seasons, the shoreline, the fern, flax and trees such as the ngaio and the pohutukawa, both of which are rich in mythological meaning. Grace’s portrayal of the development from ‘innocence’ to understanding and her engagement with notions of ‘good’ or ‘evil’ similarly reflects an awareness informed by Māori mythology. The significance of the sacred is an area of investigation that has not been central to the study of postcolonial writing. Rask Knudsen refers to an update to the 2002 edition of The Empire Writes Back in which Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin acknowledge that ‘analyses of the sacred have been one of the most neglected […] areas of postcolonial study’ (p.11). Although identifying the spiral as the most significant icon in Māori carving which she recognizes to be ‘imbued with spirituality’, Rask Knudsen’s analysis 1 is focused on cultural change. Acknowledging the ‘strong focus on movement, transformation and passage as integral aspects of the indigenous world-views and notions of creativity’, the spiral is seen as a representation of the ‘cultural’ transformation that has taken place in contemporary Māori writing (p.25). In this analysis, the theme of rite of passage is limited by a postcolonial context in which the cycle of death and rebirth is investigated in terms of ‘cultural renovation’ and transformation is identified as ‘a shift from orality to writing, then a shift in setting from postcolonial fringe to indigenous center, and finally a shift in mode from European literary conventions to indigenous oral conventions’. It is this secular pattern that Rask Knudsen refers to as the completion of a ‘cyclical journey’ that opens ‘a path towards a dynamic future in which the traditional and the modern converge into old new texts; or new old texts celebrated in the ceremony of writing’ (p.26).

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