 Hello and welcome to a summary of all you need to know about Journey by Patricia Grace. My name's Barbara and I'll explain everything related to the meaning of this story as it appears in Stories of Ourselves, the University of Cambridge International Examination Anthology of short stories in English. I'll begin with some context about the author of this story before explaining the plot in a nutshell. I'll explain the characters that you should be aware of in the story and then I'll highlight important themes that you should consider when studying and reading through this text. Bear in mind that we do have a Stories of Ourself course that goes into depth on these stories so do make sure you also sign up for the course. So let's get started. Now to begin with Patricia Grace herself as an author her origins is Maori in other words she's a Maori novelist and she was born in Wellington New Zealand in 1937 and she is taught in primary and secondary schools and she was the writing fellow at Victoria University in Wellington in 1985. Currently she's a full-time writer and she lives on the ancestral land of her Maori people on Gati Toa, Gati Raoka and Te Ati Awa and her previous novels include Moutou Wenhua, The Moonsleeps and Petiki which won the fiction section of the New Zealand Book Awards as well as the Literature Paris in Frankfurt and she's also written four short story collections. Now let's look at the story itself journey. Now to better understand this story it's really important to understand the context related to the plot of this story. Now journey takes place in New Zealand during the 1980s. Now during this time immigration flourished and the country became very ethnically diverse yet by 2002 so this is in the period of over 20 years the native Maori only held about 14% of the country's population even if they are native to New Zealand. The amount of immigrants during this time was also so high that the government had to place laws and limits on who came into the country of course being New Zealand. This led many Maori people to leave so they left their ancestral home and they went to Australia however they faced limits on this travel because it caused economic damage to the Australian government as too many Maori people were on welfare so of course this question of immigration this question of losing ancestral home is going to be touched upon in Journey the Story itself. Now to summarise this story journey is literally about an elderly Maori man who takes a journey into town as he calls it but it's also figuratively a description of life's journey and of progress. More specifically this story questions just how much progress truly is progress. Now as this elderly Maori man progresses on his journey from taxi to train and to town he notes and comments on all the little things that are both the same but also different in particular. He notes the changes that have been made to the land such as how the government has laid down an artificial landmass to create more room for railway tracks. Now once this old Maori man is in town we learned that he has taken this journey to try to fight similar land changes. Now the government presumably the New Zealand government is taking land owned by the native Maori's and developing it and we see this when he protests too poor we want nothing more than what is ours already. However the government is taking too long to develop the land leaving this old man's nieces and nephews essentially dispossessed they have no homes and this old man is simply trying to negotiate a better deal in which his nephews and nieces can start building homes immediately in an area different from what the government has already designated will be their residential place. Now on this old Maori man protests that his nieces and nephews need homes he's told that they will be given a land of equivalent values however the natives don't want to live on this other land of equivalent value they want to live on their ancestral land that has been and to quote from the story ours since before we were born however sadly of course the man leaves empty handed and is treated like a fool hence the purpose of this story presumably is to question what governments deem to be development in progress and to show common ways in which native people are really mistreated and dispossessed. Now when it comes to the characters of this story the first of course is the old man so he's a 71 year old native Maori he's very sarcastic and also we get the sense that he's quite grumpy he takes a journey both physically and figuratively. Now the figurative journey is a description of life's journey in progress so the land is progressing the land that he lives on it's being modernized even when he's sitting on the train with new technology improving the railways. This is something of a shock to him as he can remember traveling to the city previously by steam trains so this journey again it shows both progress and this is a journey however it also shows how things can change through life and this is something perhaps of a shock to the old man. Also the old man when he's on a train to the city he notices how much the landscape has changed he notices the difference that time has brought. Now this may be important as in many ways this foreshadows things this foreshadows the changes that he will see and that are crystallized. The old man also wants to change the small piece of land that he owns and just essentially built some homes on it for his nephews and nieces this is his ancestral home he should have the power to decide what he will do with that land. However it becomes very clear to us as readers that the old man is in reality very powerless when it comes to decision making on the changes that he wishes to make on his own as ancestral land and he will soon be dispossessed. Now the other character who actually is named is called Paul and he's a city official that the old man goes to see that the old man travels into town to see who's dealing with the bureaucratic paperwork relating to his land. Now it becomes clear that the city planners basically intend to make car parking spaces out of the old man's land so something that's so valuable to the old man and his whole family is essentially just going to be made into a car park. Now Paul doesn't really empathize with the old man's plight and this leads the old man to become really frustrated and he kicks and damages Paul's desk in frustration but of course you can see that he's really powerless that's all he can do. The other character is young fuller and he's a taxi driver the old man speaks to while in the taxi. Another character is George and he's the old man's nephew he speaks about the issues the old man is facing with his land and we can see that him as well as his relatives will be dispossessed as the story ends. Now when it comes to themes the first is that of change so the old man notices the change in technology the change in government regulations in other words government laws that changed his family life as well as the impending land loss that comes and the change in his own body as he grows old and he accepts death. Now closely linked is the theme of death so change leads to death and the many deaths that are hinted in this story so the death of the old man is revealed at the end when he expresses his wish to be burned to be cremated. However there's a different type of death the death of the family's land and the death of their way of life is hinted at with the oncoming dispossession of land and the sad thing is that this dispossession will just simply make way for more car parking spaces his land has been taken off him and his family just to make a parking lot. Also the death of a cultural way of life and the past is hinted at so the mention of new technology and developments which kill off old traditions and old ways of doing things. The other important theme is that of dispossessions the old man and his family are likely Maori people and they seem like they will be dispossessed of their ancestral land and their ancestral home and the old man is really frustrated and his nieces and nephews are fearful of the future as a landless people. So that's all if you found this summary video useful do make sure you sign up for our stories of ourselves course and also check out our website which is www.firstreadtutors.com where you can find plenty of other English revision worksheets, model answers and online courses covering all the major English syllabus including edXL, AQA and IGCSE. Thank you so much for watching.