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
Kahu sneaks away into the ocean, but nobody realizes until they see her white dress being thrown around by the choppy waves. Rawiri plunges into the freezing ocean after her, but she keeps swimming toward the ancient whale, determined to save it. She starts singing “karanga mai” to the whale. “Oh sacred ancestor,” she sings to him, “I am Kahu […] Kahutia Te Rangi.” The whale looks at her. She holds onto his jaw, but the waves sweep her away. She asks him for help and repeats that she is Kahutia Te Rangi, or Paikea. The whale starts to shudder in delight, and the rest of the herd sings a hopeful tune. Rawiri worries that the whale will accidentally swallow or crush Kahu, who is hanging onto its fin.
Kahu’s encounter with the ancient whale reenacts many elements of the original whale rider legend, from the name she uses to the call of “karanga mai.” Rawiri follows Kahu in vain, just like when she went diving for Koro Apirana’s rock on the seafloor, only to again see that he is powerless to protect her because her abilities already exceed his. Meanwhile, the ancient whale’s ecstatic reaction to Kahu calling herself Kahutia Te Rangi suggests that he believes he is finally reencountering the whale rider, a long-lost relative, after so many centuries of separation from humans. Readers can only guess why Kahu introduces herself with her ancestor’s name—perhaps she already knows about this whale’s specific personal history with Kahutia Te Rangi, or perhaps she just assumes that all whales would know about the whale rider legend.
Themes
The whale rolls onto his stomach and thinks, “It is my lord, the whale rider.” He makes footholds for Kahu by rumpling his skin, and she climbs up onto his back. He makes a saddle for her by moving his skin, and she mounts it. The herd’s younger males start to approach, and Rawiri, still stuck in the choppy ocean, wonders if he’ll make it out alive. Kahu feels a confusing mix of emotions—love and hope, terror and solitude—and she starts to weep. She tells the whale that they must go, and he starts to swim, carrying her deep into the ocean, past the horizon. The chapter ends with: “Hui e, haumi e, taiki e. / Let it be done.”
By mounting the whale, Kahu saves him and reestablishes the long-lost ancestral relationship between humans and whales. After all of Koro Apirana’s doomsaying, this also means that she will restore her community from the brink of social and moral collapse. Her complex feelings on the matter show that she sees it as her duty to save the whale by riding him, but she also doesn’t know if she will make it out alive. The whale clearly thinks that she is Paikea, and the reader knows that she is not, but this opens the question of how her powers derive from his. Is Kahu a reincarnation of Paikea, and, if so, does she have the same divine powers that enabled him to survive a journey across the Pacific? Is she just acting? Or does she just take on Paikea’s spirit in a metaphorical way?
Themes
