Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Journey, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Modernization and Colonial Violence
Land and Culture
Heroism and Societal Inequality
The Individual vs. the Collective
Aging
Summary
Analysis
The narrator prepares for his trip into the city to meet officials about his land. He thinks of himself as “an old man going on a journey," though he notes that he is only 71, not really an old man. His family buttons up his coat for him and gives him money, making him feel more like an old man than he wants. While he thinks a “pakeha” (the Māori word for “white person”) may have died in this coat because it was second hand, he likes it and isn’t afraid of “pakeha kehuas” (a white person’s ghost), anyway. He goes to the bathroom to avoid having to use the unpleasant lavatories in the city, and then the taxi arrives.
The story emphasizes the narrator’s age and race, letting the reader know that these will be important features of his character. The narrator’s family treats him as though he is less able than he is, but the narrator resists this categorization. In doing so, he stresses the importance of the individual over the collective and demonstrates that he has self-confidence despite his family’s negative implications about his age. By using the word “pakeha,” the narrator introduces the concept of racial tension between Māori and white culture, a key part of New Zealand’s colonial experience. Finally, by identifying the narrator only as an “old man going on a journey,” instead of introducing him with a name, the story casts the narrator in the role of a hero, leaving home on an adventure.
Themes
In the taxi, he is in a good mood, happy to be off on his own. The driver observes that he is leaving early in the day, and the narrator responds that he is going out on a business trip that he is confident will go well. He enjoys the familiar smells of the taxi and the sight of the “same old shops,” which he notes are doing much better than in the past. After chatting about the narrator’s family, they arrive at the train station. The narrator pays the driver and tells him to pick him up at the train station at ten after five in the evening.
Again, the narrator appears self-confident and sees himself as a capable leader of his family. He also continues to value his independence from his family, indicating his prioritization of the individual over the collective. Finally, in noticing that the “same old shops” are doing much better than in the past, he demonstrates a tension between old and new and past and present. This tension is related both to his experience of aging and to the rapid modernization that is occurring in the area.
Themes
As he enters the station, he notices that it smells like pee and doesn’t feel safe, a sharp contrast to the open-air station filled with impressive steam engines he remembers from his youth. He is annoyed at the shortness of his breath as he climbs the stairs to the platform, and he takes offence at the man in the ticket office, who looks unkempt and scatters the narrator’s change instead of handing it neatly back to him. He wants to flip the ticket officer off, which would make him feel less like an old man, but does not.
Again, the narrator shows a clear preference for the past over the negative changes of the present. Additionally, the fact that he is annoyed at the shortness of his breath demonstrates that he does feel the effects of aging but resists them at this point in the story. He also feels a desire to resist the ticket salesman’s disrespectful behavior, showing he still has a strong sense of self-respect despite his society’s ageism.
Themes
Sitting down in the front car of the train, he enjoys the warmth of the heaters and is glad to be free from his family, who fuss over him because of his age. As the train moves, he observes the landscape out the window. Not many fishing boats have gone out on the ocean because of the bad weather, which he attributes to Tamatea, an especially windy time period in the Māori calendar. He notes unhappily that young people don’t believe in this traditional Māori concept, and instead just watch the weather on the television.
The symbolism of the narrator sitting in the front of the train demonstrates his optimism and self-confidence, despite the world’s judgement of his age. He also again values his independence from his family. Additionally, while the narrator still derives meaning from his traditional Māori connection to land, it is clear that the rapidly changing Pakeha world does not respect these concepts—and that’s impacting Māori young people as well.
Themes
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Next, the train passes over a strip of land that used to be sea, where the narrator remembers harvesting pipis. He can’t harvest here anymore because the pakeha filled this area of the ocean with land and rerouted the train over it, in order to build a bigger road for cars. He doesn’t trust this fake land and imagines the train might hop the track into the sea. But the thought of dying doesn’t faze him because he’s “nearly old anyway.” He reflects on the strangeness of people making the sea into land, and observes that they treat the land as if it was meaningless and dead.
The narrator further develops this difference between white New Zealanders’ relationships to land and his own Māori land ethics. For the narrator, this piece of land used to be a site that provided sustenance for himself and his family. For the pakeha, who filled the harvest spot in, this piece of land had no inherent value. Because of the modernization, the narrator’s connection to this area was severed, demonstrating the detrimental effects that white New Zealanders’ land exploitation has on longstanding Māori practices. Additionally, his belief that the train will hop the track in this area is somewhat irrational, yet it again points to the tension between modernization and traditional ways, with the modern being suspect.
Themes
The train pulls into the next station, in an area where he has many relatives. He is glad he isn’t visiting these relatives because he thinks they, too, would try to meddle in the business about his land. He also observes that this area is full of new development: there are new houses, buildings, and roads; the pakeha have filled another piece of harbor to make more land to build on. The “lunatic asylum” is still there, but these days, he reminds himself, they call it a “psychiatric hospital.” As the train moves on, there are more houses, and the narrator remembers the farms that used to be there, wondering if the farmers are dead now—maybe they died rich after selling their land to developers.
As the train nears the city, modernization has an even greater impact on the land, again establishing the tension between new and old. Also, the narrator continues to appreciate his independence from his family, emphasizing his belief in the power of the individual over the collective. Additionally, the narrator’s remark about the “psychiatric hospital” is a strange one, foreshadowing themes of mental health that appear later on in his meeting about his land. The remark also develops the symbolism of formal words in the story, pointing to formal language’s ability to conceal the true nature of a thing. While the asylum may be renamed a “hospital,” the reader has no reason to believe that the institution is more benign than it used to be.
Themes
The train begins to pass through tunnels, throwing its passengers into the dark. In between each tunnel, construction machines are building roads through the hills. The narrator bitterly laments this pakeha tendency to destroy the natural world, as well as Māori complicity in these construction projects, as companies often employ Māori people to drive the machines. He compares the exposed ground of the construction projects to open wounds that will “bleed” all over the valley when it rains. He also expects that the projects are unearthing bones. At the same time, he reminds himself that these development projects allow people to have housing, food, and transportation, and that people need these things.
The narrator again differentiates pakeha land relations from Māori ones. In order to financially benefit from modern development projects, the pakeha hurt the landscape. In describing this erosion as the land “bleeding,” he demonstrates a radically different relationship to land, rooted in Māori beliefs that treat land as if it were itself a living creature, rather than a dead object. In noting that many Māori people drive the machines in these construction projects because they need to make money, the narrator celebrates the Māori's ability to survive colonization but resents the colonial system that forces them to treat the land with such violence. Finally, this passage also introduces displaced bones as a symbol of the clash between New Zealand’s past and present.
Themes
After exiting the second tunnel, the passengers have a view of the city and its harbor. The narrator observes it with combined awe and weariness: he admires it, but just looking at it makes him tired. The children sitting next to him also stop moving at the sight, “their eyes full to exploding.” The quieter of the two children reminds the narrator of a younger family member named George. When George was a child, he would run away to the narrator’s house. He would often stay there for a week or more, not speaking or asking for anything, until his mother came to get him. The narrator decides he will try to find George in the city.
The narrator’s and the children’s reactions to this first glimpse of the city are important for a few reasons. First, following the “hero’s quest” myth, the story has established the city as the site of the unknown, where the narrator is expected to experience victory. His fatigue upon seeing it deviates from the role of the hero and foreshadows his eventual defeat. Secondly, the violence in the description of the children’s “eyes full to exploding” again recalls the violence of pakeha land relations. Thirdly, the fatigue that the narrator feels seeing the city also indicates that he is feeling the effects of his age. Finally, the awe that all three onlookers experience reflects the power difference between the pakeha, who built the massive city, and the Māori, whose land it occupies. This passage is also critical in developing both George’s and the narrator’s characters. In describing George running away and not speaking, the story establishes him as a clearly traumatized child, and also a character who refuses to be controlled. In showing the narrator’s care for George, the story re-establishes the narrator as a caregiver for his family.
Themes
The train pulls into the city’s railway station, which the narrator observes is much the same as he remembers. His memories of the station are violent ones: he remembers the particular spot where a man was found murdered; he remembers how, during his youth, many starving people crowded into the station to die together, rather than starve to death alone. He didn’t starve, though, because his father cultivated every part of the family’s land, growing all sorts of magnificent vegetables that the family could eat, sell, or give away. Often, the narrator and his siblings helped with the garden instead of going to school.
By contrasting the more economically stable present with the narrator’s memory of past economic crisis, the story suggests that modernization has improved the lives of some New Zealanders. The narrator’s family, however, does not seem to have benefitted much from modernizing projects. Instead, their survival has been, and continues to be, tied to their deep connection to the land. The passage also connects survival with being part of a collective, as both the starving people in the train station and the family gardening together are forced to depend on others in hard times.
Themes
Back in the present, outside the station, the narrator is early for his meeting, so he decides to walk rather than take the bus, which he doesn’t trust. He knows the city well, having spent time in all the different pubs, and thinks that after his meeting has ended, he might go grab a drink to celebrate. He passes a spot where a road construction project bulldozed a graveyard, and remembers how the newspapers reported that the remains were “Resited […] tastefully.” He imagines the bones of different people all jumbled up together, and is glad none of his relatives were buried there. He continues on his walk, feeling confident about his upcoming meeting.
The narrator again demonstrates a distrust of the modern, in his disapproval of both the buses and the new road. But while his distrust toward the buses seems illogical, his distrust toward the new road does not, as it stems from his memory of the violent destruction of the graveyard, which symbolizes a pakeha desire to erase New Zealand’s colonial past.However, in not allowing this memory to mar his optimism about his future meeting, he conforms to the role of hero in the “hero’s quest” narrative pattern.
Themes
The narrator’s meeting is over; he is back in the railway station. It’s too early to catch the train home, so he waits, remembering how the starving people used to wait for death in the station when he was growing up. He looks for George, who is often in the station. The narrator’s right foot hurts, and he feels sick. The station is so crowded it feels like the “starvation times.”
After his meeting, the narrator seems far less confident and less physically able than he was before, demonstrating a change in his relationship to his age. He also seems to have suffered defeat in the meeting, instead of the victory expected of a hero. Finally, by noting that there are so many people waiting desolately in the station that it feels like the “starvation times” of the past, the narrator makes clear that modernization has not brought economic prosperity to everyone.
Themes
He thinks back to the meeting he just had at the city planning office. The city planner he was talking to kept calling him “Sir” in a way “that didn’t sound so well” to the narrator. The narrator started out the meeting identifying common ground between himself and the city, agreeing that “people need houses.” The narrator understood that the city planned to appropriate his land as part of a new housing development; meanwhile, the narrator explained, he and his now dead siblings had been planning for many years to subdivide the land so that each of his nieces and nephews could build their houses on it. Both sides wanted houses on the land.
The city planner’s use of “sir” represents how formal words can become a tool to conceal a darker reality: on the surface, the planner is addressing the narrator respectfully, but the narrator senses that a deeper disrespect hides behind that veneer. Nevertheless, the narrator perseveres with his attempt to find a compromise, placing himself once again in the role of the story’s optimistic hero. The compromise he is trying to attain is one between a pakeha relationship with land, symbolized by the desire to profit from land in the form of development, and a Maori relationship to land, symbolized by his family’s desire to maintain their generations-long relationship with the land. This desire to stay together on the land also demonstrates the family’s prioritization of the collective over the individual.
Themes
The city planner responded condescendingly, telling the narrator that it was not so simple. The two began to argue back and forth, with the narrator outlining his plan for subdivision, and the city planner telling him that subdivision was not possible. The city planner was not sure that the narrator understood just how complex and bureaucratic the subdivision process would be, and furthermore, the narrator’s land had already been set aside for something else. The narrator assured him he did understand, and that he had the money to pay for the process. But the city planner only offered to compensate his family members with money or “equivalent land.” This offer made no sense to the narrator, as the land had been his family’s home for generations—no land could possibly be equal. The family had communicated this many times to the city.
The building conflict between the city planner and the narrator is based on their fundamentally different understandings of land. For the city planner, land is a means to attain wealth, so it makes sense to offer to buy the narrator’s family out or re-settle them on “equivalent” sites. However, the narrator sees the land as a living entity, one that his family has related to deeply for generations. Just as one relative cannot be sold or exchanged, there cannot possibly be any land equal to his family’s land. Additionally, the argument takes on even clearer undertones of discrimination, as the city planner condescends multiple times to the narrator, assuming he lacks intelligence because he is an older Māori man.
Themes
After this back and forth, the city planner offered to show the narrator the development plans (although, he pointed out, the narrator would be dead by the time the development was constructed). These plans, crafted by “experts,” designated the narrator’s land as a parking lot, according to its “suitability and convenience.” The narrator was astonished: why would they pave over the most fertile land in the area, and build houses on the rockiest sections? The narrator again refused to be “Resited” on different land, urging the city planner to revise the plans, since they were just drawings on paper, and pointing out that the family owned the land, not the city.
Again, the two cultures’ competing land relationships are on full display, as the men argue over who has more expert knowledge about the land. Is it the city, whose “experts” have evaluated the land’s “suitability and convenience” for future development? Or is it the narrator, who has tended the land his entire life? For the city, the land is a site of extraction; for the narrator, it is a site of care. Additionally, in planning to pave over the narrator’s land, which he rightfully owns, the city is appropriating Māori land in the name of progress, a tradition that has continued since the beginning of New Zealand’s colonization. The narrator’s use of the word “resited” to describe the city’s eviction of his family drives this point home by calling upon the symbolism of the graveyard he passed earlier. In displacing both the family and the bones, the city demonstrates the same kind of dehumanizing violence, treating both human remains and living families as irrelevant relics of its colonial past.
Themes
The city planner argued that if the family—whom he calls “you people”—lived all in the same area as the narrator wanted, the land’s value would immediately decrease. At this comment, the narrator became very upset, and contemplated punching the city planner, but instead responded that the family didn’t want to be “scattered everywhere.” The two began talking at the same time, interrupting each other, with the planner continuing to make comments about the narrator’s family bringing down the land’s value, and the narrator continuing to state his family’s desire to stay on the land together and grow food there. Finally, instead of punching the city planner, the narrator kicks the side of his desk, breaking a hole in it and cracking the veneer.
The city’s racial discrimination becomes overt when the planner refers to the narrator’s Māori family as “you people,” a very loaded term that labels its recipient as an outsider, almost always on the basis of race or ethnicity. The fact that the city planner is probably not lying— the real estate value of the development may well decrease if it contained a group of 11 Māori-owned houses— demonstrates the extent of racism in New Zealand’s society. In this way, the story shows how the racism established during the country’s colonial time period still affects the modern day. Additionally, the conflict continues to distinguish the pakeha tendency to treat land as wealth from the Maori tendency to treat land as a living entity. The narrator’s fear of the family being “scattered” demonstrates how he fears individualization. His kicking the desk is symbolic as well: he acts decisively in conflict, like a hero in a climactic battle. In cracking the veneer of the planner’s desk (itself a symbol of bureaucracy), the narrator cracks the veneer of the city planner’s formal language as well, revealing the racism hiding underneath.
Themes
At this, the entire office became quiet. People in the office called the narrator a crazy old man and suggested that he be arrested or hospitalized for insanity, threatening to call their boss to deal with him. The city planner told the narrator to leave, and the narrator did, making sure not to limp.
The threat of being institutionalized for insanity, foreshadowed in the narrator’s observation of the psychiatric hospital on the train ride in, demonstrates the power that the city holds over the narrator. This power is rooted in colonial control, as incarceration—putting people in prison—is a historic way that New Zealand’s white elite controlled Māori populations. Māori people are still disproportionately represented in New Zealand’s prisons. The narrator’s age also plays a role in the city planners’ violent threats, as they call him a “crazy old man.” The narrator’s climactic violence was therefore not a heroic victory, as it only underscores his powerlessness. While he tries to maintain his dignity and positive self-image by leaving the office without limping, he is clearly demoralized.
Themes
Back in the present, at the railroad station, George is sitting next to the narrator. They wait together, not talking much. The narrator does not tell him about the meeting, thinking that it’s no use telling George that “you go empty handed and leave nothing behind,” because George “had always been empty-handed, had never wanted anything except to have nothing.” Finally, the narrator leaves on his train, still trying not to limp.
The degree of the narrator’s demoralization is evident in this conversation with George. Although he has been looking forward to talking with George for the whole story, they barely speak a word together, because the narrator is ashamed to tell George that he cannot “leave anything behind” for his family. This is a far cry from the start of the story, when he saw himself as a capable provider for his family, so much so that he resented them for even trying to help out in the negotiations with the city.
Themes
The narrator is in the taxi after his train ride back to his hometown station, making small talk with the driver. The driver drops him off in front of his door and compliments the narrator’s well-kept garden. The narrator promises to give the driver some vegetables the next time he sees him. The driver notices the narrator’s limp and asks him if he’s alright, and the narrator replies that he’s doing great.
The narrator’s garden is a reminder of the family’s connection to their land and their many generations of collective survival on it. In offering the driver vegetables, the narrator extends this circle of care out to the wider community, just as the family used to do by giving away produce during the “starvation times.” However, the narrator's defeat at the meeting has thrown this sense of abundance, collectivity, and survival into question, so that in this context, the garden also represents all that will be lost when the family loses the land.Additionally, the narrator’s dishonest reply to the taxi driver, who appears to be a good friend, conveys the narrator’s alienation from others as a result of his shame about not being able to secure a future for his family.
Themes
Inside his house, the narrator faces the expectant gazes of his family members, who are all wondering about the meeting. Sensing that the meeting went poorly, the family asks about other parts of the trip. The narrator tells them that George is okay. A family member mentions that she heard that George is in a gang, and doesn’t wash or go to work, but the narrator replies that George hasn’t changed at all. The family goes quiet, waiting for the narrator to talk about the meeting, and finally realizes that he won’t.
The narrator returns home from his journey, but he is not a hero returning home to recount his victory to his family. Instead, he tells them nothing, once again demonstrating his alienation as a result of his powerlessness to prevent the city’s land theft. The pain that George’s absence causes the family is clear as well in this passage, as they talk about his refusal to conform to the norms of society.
Themes
Later in the evening, the narrator abruptly tells his family that he does not want to be buried when he dies because the ground is not safe. They should cremate him instead. He yells this at his family, who look hurt. Meanwhile, his foot is becoming very painful. He goes to his room, shuts the door, and sits on his bed for a long time, staring at his hands.
The narrator suffers the pain and powerlessness of land theft under colonization. Not only can he not ensure the future survival of his family, but he also can’t even feel secure about his own death, as the land that until now has been a source of care and sustenance has become a threat—today’s events have reminded him that the ground is unsafe for Māori remains. This shame and alienation drive him into his room alone, reiterating the connection between individuality and death. There, it is clear that the narrator’s self-image has deteriorated, along with his physical ability: he seems like a much older man than he did at the beginning of his trip. Staring at his hands, which until now have helped feed his family, he seems to have given up the fight altogether, and is now waiting passively for his death.
Themes
