The Depiction of Maori in the Fiction of C K Stead: An Attempt at Pakeha Indigenization

Abstract

This thesis investigates the process Terry Goldie calls 'indigenization' (a process that enables the descendants of colonizers to feel really at home in the ex-colony, to attempt to become indigeneous) as it is manifested in the fiction of C.K. Stead. This involves consideration of Stead's treatment of Maori, the real indigenes, as well as his portrayal of Pakeha. My contention is that Stead uses a number of tropes widely used in Canadian and Australian and well as New Zealand writing. These include a lovingly described landscape, appropriations of the indigeneous language (Maori) and, most importantly, relationships between colonizer/ex-colonizer (Pakeha) males and indigene (Maori) females. These relationships serve as crucial elements connecting Pakeha to the country - but always at the expense of the Maori woman: she dies or is effectively exiled. There is a real sense in much of the fiction that Maori are at best part of the past: the present and future of the country belongs almost solely to Pakeha. I pay attention to both the subtle and blatant ways in which Maori and things concerning Maori are disparaged, in order to suggest how stead's fiction as a body constructs a New Zealand in which Maori are irrelevant except as objects to aid Pakeha indigenization.