Analyse af Patricia Graces novelle 'A Way of Talking'

Patricia Grace has written a short story called “A Way of Talking”. It’s about two Maori sisters located in New Zealand. Hera is the older sister. We do not get to know her name in the story. Rose is the younger sister, and she is the one who comes home from school in Auckland. Rose comes home from her studies, because of her sister’s wedding. Although Rose is the younger sister, she is livelier and cleverer. This came to a test, when the sisters visited Jane Frazer. She is the women who is making their dresses for the wedding. Jane starts talking about some Maoris that is working for her. The thing that made the sisters mad is that she didn’t know the workers names or nor was she interested in learning their names. Rose got mad and stood up for her people. That situation made Hera Realize that Rose has changed.

The style of the short story is kind of modern, but with some old Maori words. The writer has done a good job, by making the story from Heras point of view. It makes the story more relatable. Because of the fact that Hera is the one telling us the story, we never get to know her name. Since the story is told by one of the sisters, it makes it easy to see that they are different from each other. It’s almost like they were born in the wrong order. If I read the story without knowing who’s eldest, I would definitely guess that Rose is older. She seems more mature. Its almost like Hera doesn’t know how to control her feelings and just keeps it all inside herself. The two sisters are probably around their twenties, without much of an age difference. Rose is what they call a kamakama, which means she´s different, hardworking and clever. She speaks her mind, which is completely opposite of what Hera does. It’s like Hera is not fully developed. “I felt my face get hot. I was angry. At the same time I was hoping Rose would let the remark pass” This quote shows a lot of things. It shows that Hera gets mad but keeps it all to herself. This also tells the difference between the sisters. Hera is scared of Roses behavior while Rose takes the last puff of her cigarette and gets her anger out. The relationship between the sisters is still good, Although they have two very different personalities, they can still laugh and talk like normal sisters.