• 영어영문학
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• 제56권2호
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• pp.277-299
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• 2010

This study explores Witi Ihimaera's The Whale Rider (1987) from ecological and postcolonial perspectives. Ihimaera is one of the prominent Maori writers who have critically voiced their concerns about the fragmentation of Maori tradition and the alienation of an environmentally friendly culture in New Zealand. Throughout the novel The Whale Rider, with his mythic imagination and cultural sensitivity, Ihimaera raises ecological awareness in terms of environmental justice and promotes critical consciousness regarding sociocultural and histo-political realities of the Maori people as alienated others in their ancestors' land. Revolving around the developmental process of a young Maori girl named after a mythical Maori ancestor Kahutia Te Rangi also known as the Whale Rider to inherit the Maori leadership, the novel describes the historical, cultural, emotional landscape of the Maori community in the white-centered society of New Zealand. In particular, this paper analyzes the leaving and homing process of narrator Rawiri which is deeply embedded in Maori myth and philosophy toward an eco-friendly culture and postcolonial reality. Indeed, Ihimaera skillfully juxtaposes young man Rawiri's experience outside the Maori community and young girl Kahu's life at the Maori home. In the end, while Kahu achieves her destiny in a mythical way to foster a new vision of harmonious co-existence that is rooted in Maori heritage and compatible with Western culture, Rawiri comes to understand the interrelatedness of all existence and embraces both the rational knowledge of scientific empiricism and the traditional knowledge of spiritual experiences. The novel The Whale Rider was also turned into a film by New Zealand's most influential female film director Niki Caro in 2002, and the film Whale Rider received international acclaim.

• 인문언어
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• 제8집
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• pp.151-173
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• 2006

Even in this current high-tech industrial age, mythological imagination is considered important. Although each mythology scattered all across the world may have an insignificant origin, to understand that particular society fully, one must not mistakenly assume that the mythology itself is a production of a primitive mind. Ultramodern physics and futurology professor Freeman Dyson has also acknowledged this opinion. He insists that in order for human kind to survive into the far future it most keep in touch with its far past. Levi-Strauss also observes that mythology and science aren't a entirely separate domains. The scientific mind is regarded as a source of understanding the intrinsic qualities of mythology. Taking mythology and science as a binomial opposition, and only weighing their prospects, should be put to the past as we should recognize the need for mythology and science's qualitative unification. In this new point of view, regarding mythology as a meaningless irrationality should cease, while finding out why the inevitably related world of mythology needs metaphoric, ideological consideration. By utilizing 'Whale Rider' by Witi Ihimaera(2004) we will discover why our lives require an 'image' that is borrowed from our experience. The author, Witi Ihimaera, is originally from the Maori tribe, who approaches the world with a mythological imagination, which is not easy to understand with scientific thinking nor in modern civilization. When looking into the mythology of the ocean which still lives in modern civilization, while noting that the world is one, the author indicates that reality and unreality, nature and the super-natural, present and the past, science and fantasy, were not divided from the beginning. However, overtime humans have divided the borders. To do this, the author interprets the ancient emotions of the Maori tribe which have been traditionally accumulated in the group identity in a new literary way by introducing the Maori tribe's ancestral god, Paikia, who can converse with the ocean and the whales. This piece, which has been made into a movie and won awards in 5 international film festivals, including the Toronto International Film Festival, regards primitive emotions as a rational concept instead of an instrumental concept. Also these primative emotions are continuing their attempts to communicate with nature. Furthermore, it advises contemporary human beings who seek for eternal life to not exploit the cultural differences that have been formed naturally, and it is vital for human beings to transcend the ethnic boundaries and to think rationally. In the story, we can find "the dissimilar us" that philosopher E. Levinas mentioned in his sayings, which refers to responsible human beings who devote their lives for the sake of other people instead of fulfilling their own needs.