The City Planner Character Analysis

The city planner is the story’s main antagonist, representing the forces of colonization that the narrator faces. Going into the meeting, the city planner has the same agenda as many other New Zealand government officials before him: that is, he wants to gain control of Māori-owned land. The power difference between the narrator and the city planner is clear in the beginning of the story, as the narrator, despite being elderly, must take an entire day to travel all the way into the city in inclement weather to meet the official in his office. Additionally, the city planner speaks in a bureaucratic tone that is very different from the narrator’s conversational tone and immediately begins condescending to the narrator. He becomes increasingly rude throughout the conversation, suggesting that because the narrator will be dead, what happens to his land should not matter to him, and ultimately telling the narrator that having a Māori family living on the land will decrease land value. This personal prejudice against the narrator’s Māori identity is reinforced by institutionalized racism, as the city’s racist zoning laws prevent the family from subdividing their land. Furthermore, it is clear that the narrator does not know the city planner’s name, or does not feel comfortable enough with him to use it, as the reader learns that the city planner is called Paul only when the narrator kicks his desk and is forced to leave. The city planner therefore represents the forces of colonization threatening the Māori population of New Zealand.