Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Whale Rider, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Humans and Nature
Maori Identity
Gender and Power
Familial Love
Summary
Analysis
The mass whale beaching makes the news all over New Zealand, but the equally strange events that occur the next day in Whangara do not. Koro Apirana and Porourangi fly back from the South Island, barely beating a storm, and report that their land dispute did not go well. Koro Apirana thinks something significant is happening. The family goes to visit the beach, which still reeks of death. Observing the dead whales, Koro Apirana comments, “this is a sign to us.” Rawiri drives the family home in the stormy night.
The beaching in the last chapter was only a prelude to the novel’s true climax in this chapter. It’s telling that the three chiefs—the current chief Koro Apirana and the future chiefs Porourangi and Kahu—were all absent at this first beaching. They will get one more chance to prove themselves, and as Koro Apirana’s comments suggest, this will be the last and greatest test of whether his people can live up to their ancestral obligations to their whale kin.
Themes
While Kahu is helping carry Koro Apirana’s bags inside, all falls silent. On the porch, Kahu stops and turns to the ocean. A great roaring sound and “streaks of blue lightning” rise up from the depths. It’s a whale. But Koro Apirana cries out because this is a special whale—an ancient whale from the past. “Karanga mai,” he sings, and the rest of his herd joins in. The whale also has a sacred tattoo on his head.
The supernatural flashes of light and sound, the traditional greeting of “karanga mai,” and the whale’s tattoo are all key elements from the original whale rider legend. These details explain how Koro Apirana so easily identifies the ancient whale, and they also suggest that the ancient whale has come to Whangara in search of Kahutia Te Rangi, his beloved, long-lost whale rider.
Themes
Soon thereafter, at Koro Apirana’s orders, Rawiri is calling all the village men to the meeting house. Nanny Flowers pleads for the women to be included, but Koro Apirana refuses. Still, he says she can assemble the women separately, but specifically warns her to keep Kahu away. He has good reason to call a meeting: his family saw the ancient whale swim up to the shore and throw itself on the beach. Its herd waited behind, and some of the older females sang to it, hoping to convince it to return. Down on the beach, Rawiri and his family marveled at the massive whale, which measures 20 meters, and Koro Apirana asked if it wanted to live or die. It raised its tail fin, as though to say, “That is for you to decide.”
Koro Apirana’s sexism continues to shape his decisions and blind him to Kahu’s true potential. He tries to keep her away because he continues to see her special powers as a form of deviance or even a curse—whereas in a boy he would see them as a blessing. And by excluding the women from his meeting, he not only misses out on valuable ideas, but he also excludes half of his community from what may be the most important decision they have ever made. On another note, the whale’s behavior suggests that he has chosen to die, leaving his herd to carry on its migration without a leader. In the chapters on his herd, his feelings of isolation, nostalgia, and despair were specifically linked to losing his connection to the whale rider. The raised fin suggests that he may be hoping that the people of Whangara can help him find a new sense of purpose.
Themes
The men gather in the meeting house and the women in the dining room. Koro Apirana tells the men how their ancestors, like Paikea, could once communicate with whales—until humans grew arrogant. People began thinking their science could explain everything and forgot “the original oneness of the world.” But the ancient whale is both natural and supernatural. It represents the link to nature that the Maori have lost. If the men can’t return the whale to the ocean, it will die—and so will their Maori culture.
Koro Apirana directly explains the symbolism behind the ancient whale’s fate and his people’s mission to save it. Recall that the novel began with a description of “the original oneness of the world” which has been lost, and both Koro Apirana’s people and the ancient whale’s herd feel they must get back in touch with this past oneness in order to live in accord with their values. This chapter’s events represent the culmination of all this loss and yearning, as the ancient whale also stands for the origin of Koro Apirana’s community. So if the people of Whangara can save the whale, then the ancestral connection between humans and whales will be repaired, and both species can go on living in harmony with the broader world. Readers won’t be surprised to learn that Kahu is central to this picture.
Themes
Get the entire The Whale Rider LitChart as a printable PDF.
The men point their car headlights at the beach. Koro Apirana sends Rawiri and Billy to tie a rope around the ancient whale’s tail, which is sticking out into the water; Rawiri dives under the tail to get the rope around. When the tide rises, Koro Apirana explains, the men will pull on the rope with their tractors to turn the whale around and help him return to sea.
The men try to save the whale with brute force, but readers may rightly be wary of this approach because it didn’t work the last time—the day before, the navy dragged the whales out to sea, only to watch them beach themselves again. (But Koro Apirana wasn’t there, so perhaps his choice of method should be forgiven in this case.)
Themes
Rawiri and Billy go home to put on dry clothes, and they update Nanny Flowers and Kahu on their progress. But the tide rises fast, so they rush back to the beach, where the ancient whale is already partially submerged. Some of the elderly female whales try to push him back into the ocean, and the Maori men set up their tractors and start pulling on the whale. They turn him halfway around, until he is parallel with the beach, but then their rope snaps. Distressed, Koro Apirana sends Rawiri for the women. The women wade into the water and join the men, but Nanny Flowers orders Kahu to wait behind them on the beach. All the men and women chant as they push on the whale, turning it gradually towards the sea.
The men finally decide to include the women—but only out of sheer desperation, since the brute-force method isn’t working. Little do they know that they are intentionally stopping the only person truly capable of saving the whale: Kahu. Her approach will depend on spiritual and emotional strength, not physical strength. Indeed, Koro Apirana and his people fail because they are ironically doing exactly what they see as the issue: trying to change nature through brute force. In contrast, Kahu will reestablish the human-animal connection that nature actually needs to maintain its sense of balance.
Themes
Suddenly, the great whale spasms and heaves. But it moves toward the shore, not the ocean. It wants to die, Koro Apirana realizes. Kahu asks why, and Koro Apirana says it’s because the proper balance between human and nature has been broken. If the whale dies, Koro Apirana warns, he will die too. Under the stormy sky, the other whales start singing a mourning song.
Ihimaera establishes a clear metaphorical link between the whale’s sense of despair and the humans’. Both feel they have lost track of their own identity and place in the world because they have lost touch with each other. By beaching himself, the whale is not just preparing himself to die: he is also making a last-ditch attempt to reach out to humans and fix the broken balance between humans and nature. This is why Koro Apirana says that, if the whale dies, his people will, too: their identity and culture depend on their link to whales, and if they can’t save the ancient whale, they have lost this identity and culture forever.
Themes
