somewhere other than my tongue

‘Somewhere other than my tongue’: Silence and Signification

in Keri Hulme’s the bone people 1

Keri Hulme’s the bone people (1984) is an idiosyncratic and confounding novel. Its shock-

ing portrayal of child abuse perpetuated by sympathetic characters creates an uncomfort-

able complicity on the part of the readers. Hulme’s vivid and surprising characters demon-

strate that the power of the novel often lies in the spaces between speech, during the si-lence that courses through the bone people. Silence is a device used across literature, reaching back to Classical texts, and is a tool that has been adopted by many postcolonial writers to explore the dynamics between the colonisers and the colonised, the oppressors and the oppressed. This essay sets out to explore how the bone people takes up the con-cept of silence as variant forms of resistance, as is widespread in postcolonial literature, but extends and complicates this theme in its refusal to allow for a resolution, reconcilia-tion, or transcendence.

The novel explores the lives of three characters living on the rugged west coast of New

Zealand’s South Island in a broadly contemporary setting: Kerewin, a part-Māori, part-

Pākehā recluse; Simon, a fair-skinned mute boy with little memory of his infant identity;

and Simon’s adoptive father, a Māori named Joe. Throughout the novel the three charac-

ters’ lives are woven together, as Simon and Joe slowly become a part of Kerewin’s life,

breaking through her self-imposed isolation. However it is gradually revealed to Kerewin (and the readers) that the soft-spoken, affable Joe frequently and viciously beats Simon. The narrative splinters after Joe beats Simon to the point of near death, after Simon at-tacks Kerewin and then Joe. The three characters follow separate, redemptive paths, be-

fore finding their way back to one another for a reunion which many critics find unsatisfy2 -

ing. Whilst this essay will discuss the role of silence in all three characters’ lives, it will par-

ticularly focus on the psychological muteness of Simon. The novel explores a number of themes throughout the narrative, making it a thematically dense text. Child abuse, issues

of cultural identity, the roles of Māori traditions in modern society are all dealt with in the

Hulme has expressly requested that the novel’s title be written entirely in lowercase, and thus all refer1 -ences to the novel will be written in lowercase.

See the work of: Eva Rask Knudsen; Antje Rauwerda; Maryanne Dever; C.K. Stead.2

� of �1 27

novel. It is also important to note that the whilst the bone people is written in English,

Hulme opts to intersperse the writing with Māori words and phrases (often explained in the

glossary), in a manner akin to that of Chinua Achebe’s use of Igbo in Things Fall Apart

(1958). This means that the novel is securely rooted in a hybridising postcolonial linguistic tradition, but (as this essay aims to demonstrate) during the space between language, the novel breaks away from its postcolonial heritage and uses silence as part of painting a deep psychological portrait of the characters.

This essay will explore silence in the bone people in three different forms. Firstly looking at silence as a blockage, as an unwilled inability to express oneself. This section will focus on

Kerewin’s artistic block that she attempts to move past throughout the novel. The second

form is as a mode of resistance, which is a familiar usage in postcolonial literature, and will

examine aspects of the novel like Simon’s rejection of language after experiencing trauma

and the inauthenticity of speech. Finally this essay will look at how silence moves past tra-ditional postcolonial literary uses, and acts as a space of possibility which is at times tran-

scendental. This is linked with the Māori concept of Te Kore, which translates into English

as ‘void’, as well as both ‘nothingness’ and ‘potentiality’.

In his 1986 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Elie Wiesel observed that ‘silence encour-

ages the tormentor, never the tormented.’ In politics, society, and literature silence is used 3

by oppressors to quiet and marginalise the other. Susan O’Brien highlights the importance

of silence in postcolonial literature, stating that ‘mute figures have essential places’, whilst 4

Shadi Neimneh states that they have become ‘a trope for postcolonial oppression’. Char5 -

acters such as the Island Carib Friday in Robinson Crusoe support this view, as he is

metaphorically silenced by Defoe with the novel uniquely being told from Crusoe’s per-

Elie Wiesel, quoted by Cody. C. Mullins, ‘Silence as Insubordination: Friday and Michael K’s Wordless 3

Weapon, A Post-Colonial Approach to J.M. Coetzee’s Foe and Life and Times of Michael K’ (Unpublished Master of Arts thesis, Marshall University, 2009), p. 1.

Sabryna Nicole Sarver, ‘Creating Aotearoa through discourse: Language and characters in Keri Hulme’s 4

the bone people’ (unpublished Master of Arts dissertation, Georgia Southern University, 2008), p. 76.

Dr Shadi Neimneh, ‘Postcolonial feminism: silence and storytelling in J.M. Coetzee's Foe’, Journal of Lan5 -guage and Literature 2014, 5(2), 49-55 (p. 52).

� of �2 27

spective: ‘ignor[ing] Friday’s story by omission’. J.M. Coetzee foregrounds this dynamic in 6

extremis in Foe (a 1986 retelling of the Crusoe story) as Friday is literally silenced with his tongue cut out. The cutting out of tongues is a Western mythic tradition, dating back to

Philomel in Ovid’s Metamorphosis, with examples being scattered across literature. This 7

device has become a part of postcolonial silence in literature, with the violent, physical si-lencing expressing the damaging nature of colonialism. Paradoxically, despite being inca-pable of speech, the mutilations these characters have experienced communicate even more powerfully than language could ever allow for. The damage and oppression of colo-

nialism is expressed through the wounds, meaning that ‘the colonised body speaks’ but 8

‘in its own defiant terms’ , which is also a use of silence as resistance, which will be ex9 -

plored later in this essay.

This dynamic functions similarly in the bone people: Simon is brutally beaten by his father, but too ashamed to tell anyone. However his body is impossible to silence and Kerewin discovers the abuse when she washes the child, with Simon realising that the discovery is

about to be made: ‘We’ve had it, he thinks. It’s finished and it’s all my fault.’ Whilst I do 10

not believe that Simon’s beatings are a postcolonial allegory as some critics do, both his 11

muteness and communicative body fit within a wider postcolonial literary framework. Brutal silencing is also found in Sitt Marie Rose by Etel Adnan, a Francophone postcolonial text,

focussing on women in the Middle East. Mary-Angela Willis observes that in the book ‘one

must at all costs avoid silence, which is the ultimate failure’ as silence facilitates the pa12 -

triarchy. The novel is about the oppression of women by the patriarchy, through silence,

Kelley Fulkerson, The Absent Voice: The Politics of Representation in the Canon and Responsive Texts 6

(Chattanooga: University of Tennessee, 2006), p. 86.

See also: Lavinia in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus; The Little Mermaid in Hans Christian Anderson’s The 7

Little Mermaid (1837); & Ellen Jamesian in John Irving’s The World According to Garp (1978).

Elleke Boehmer cited by Shadi Neimneh, ‘Postcolonial Feminism’, p. 52.8

Shadi Neimneh, ‘Postcolonial Feminism’, p. 52.9

Keri Hulme, the bone people, (London: Picador, 1986), p. 180. All future references to this text are to this 10

version.

See: Rauwerda, Dever, Mercer, Stead, and Evans.11

Mary-Angela Willis, ‘Francophone Literature of the Middle East Women: Breaking the Walls of Silence’, in 12

Francophone Post-Colonial Cultures: Critical Essays, ed. by Kamal Salhi (Lanham: Lexington, 2003), pp.64-74 (p. 67).

� of �3 27

with any breaches of the enforced silence resulting in death. This types of silence is par-ticularly powerful when used in theatre, as it actively resists the dramatic form, and the contrasts between the characters who do and do not speak are far more explicit. In Yael

Farber’s reworking of the Oresteia in her 2008 play Molora, she relocates the text to during

the Truth and Reconciliation Trials in post-Apartheid South Africa. In this version Clytemnestra (renamed Klytemnestra) is white, Agamemnon is black, Elektra and Orestes are bi-racial, allowing for the characters to embody the racial struggles of South Africa. In

one scene Klytemnestra suffocates her daughter (Elektra) using the ‘Wet Bag Method’, si-

lencing Elektra’s monologue, controlling exactly when she can and cannot speak. Farber

writes in the stage directions that ‘this suffocation should be performed for longer than the

audience would be comfortable with’ meaning that whilst Klytemnestra exerts her domi13 -

nance over Elektra, Farber does the same to her audience, using her position as play-wright to force the audience into an silence of discomfort.

In the bone people the silence is not as violently oppressive as it is in Foe or Molora, but some aspects are as a result of the colonial framework in which the novel is situated. A

significant part of Māori culture (and in fact of the wider Pacific/Oceanic culture) is oral tra-

ditions and storytelling. These traditions create a sense of nationhood and ‘a national iden-

tity and thus national consciousness’, and so the silencing of these aspects of a culture 14

have a significant effect on the individual as their identity is destroyed. Much of Māori his-

tory is oratory, and when New Zealand was colonised English was instituted as the nation-

al language, with Māori te reo (language) being banned from schools. A linguistic hierar15 -

chy was imposed upon the country, and as a result a large part of Māori history and culture

was lost, particularly as the colonisers were unable to ‘recognise the richness of oral tradi-

tions’ and the impact enforcing English would have. As proposed in the Sapir-Whorf hy16 -

Yael Farber, Molora (London: Oberon, 2008), p. 48.13

Renée T. White, Lewis R. Gordon, and T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, Frantz Fanon: A Critical Reader (Ox14 -ford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996), p. 102.

Ross Calman, 'Māori education – mātauranga - The native schools system, 1867 to 1969', Te Ara - the 15

Encyclopedia of New Zealand (July 2012) <http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/maori-education-matauranga/page-3> [accessed 29 March 2015].

Penny Van Toorn, ‘Indigenous texts and narratives’, in The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature, 16

ed. by Elizabeth Webby (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 19-32 (p. 19).� of �4 27

http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/maori-education-matauranga/page-3


pothesis of linguistic determinacy, an individual’s language determines their thoughts and

ideas, and therefore a large portion of their identity. This hypothesis also fits within a 17

broader societal context, and as Māori te reo was institutionally destroyed, so too was a

significant part of New Zealand’s identity, with attempts to revive the language emerging in

the 1980s — as Hulme began writing the bone people. Whilst Hulme’s characters are not

experiencing the violent (figurative or literal) removal of their mother tongue, they are still situated within a New Zealand that is suffering from a collective crisis of identity. Kerewin and Joe are both experiencing a blockage of identity, a sense of loss of their culture and of

Māoridom. As a result this form of silence as a blockage fits within a postcolonial literary

framework, as the characters’ inability to express themselves is related to their cultural

heritage.

Most of the narrative in the bone people is presented through the central character of the artist Kerewin Holmes, who is suffering from an artistic block at the start of the novel. An artistic block is not a silence in the conventional sense of speechlessness; Kerewin is still capable of speech, but her inner voice is unable to communicate, her soul is silenced, and thus she cannot paint. Kerewin relies heavily on her art, as she expresses early on in the

novel to the readers through her thoughts: ‘No need of people, because she was self-fulfill-

ing, delighted with the pre-eminence of her art, and the future of her knowing hands’. 18

Upon finding herself incapable of painting Kerewin explains to Joe that her greatest desire

is ‘to paint as [she] could before’, before going on to explain that:19

These [paintings] are the only things in my life that are real to me now […] Not rela-

tionships. Not Families […] But something. Something has died. Isn’t there now. I

can’t paint […] I am dead inside.20

Paul Lamy, ‘Language and Ethnolinguistic Identity: The Bilingualism Question’, International Journal of the 17

Sociology of Language, 20 (1979), 23–36.

the bone people, p. 8.18



� of �5 27

Kerewin’s speech is noticeably fragmented here, she is unable to articulate her block, and

her usual eloquence is usurped by a more vague and disjointed explanation — now no longer able to express herself linguistically or even artistically. She goes on to describe

one of her paintings as a ‘gibbering thing’, showing that just as Kerewin is incapable of ar-

ticulating her feelings fully to herself, her art can communicate nothing but nonsense.

Kerewin’s blockage does resolve itself, shortly after the narrative splits in three and she

reconnects with her heritage, as she sculpts a tricephalous of the three characters’ heads,

weaved together in a spiral formation. It is possible to argue that there is great cultural 21

significance with Kerewin’s artistic blockage when it comes to the artistic form she choos-

es. Māori culture has an artistic heritage, with ta moko (tatooing), weaving, carving, and

rock painting being the four major strands. Canvas painting is a European tradition, which Kerewin has stopped being able to do, yet her silence is unblocked when she engages in

sculpture (a more traditional Māori method) and makes use of the spiral pattern. Her soul

is silenced until she is able to reconnect with her Māoridom, which she begins through her

sculpture, before she embarks upon a spiritual journey leading to a reconciliation with her identity, and the release of the blockage: ‘It’s music and singing and talk talk talk’.22

Joe is consumed by silence of suppression, which contrasts with his relaxed and laconic style of speech. He speaks with a gentle and candid articulacy, which helps construct him as a sympathetic character. As a result his speech is juxtaposed against his extreme, vi-cious attacks on his adoptive son, Simon. When Joe reaches a point at which he can no longer articulate himself, he often resorts to violence, as shown when he thinks to himself

(whilst beating Simon): ‘I’ve got to do it[…]What else can I do?[…]What else is there to

do?’ . His violence is a cathartic explosion from his emotional blockages, releasing the 23

tension from the thoughts and emotions that Joe tries to suppress throughout the novel.

Marianne Dever suggests that Joe is ‘trapped within the adopted Pakeha stereotype of the

ignorant, hard-drinking Māori labourer’, despite being well-educated and articulate. One

striking example of Joe’s silent blockages is when his cousin Luce taunts him for his past

homosexual encounters. Luce suggests that Simon’s visits to the local pederast Binny

Spirals are a motif which features heavily in Māori art.21


the bone people, p. 166-167.23

� of �6 27

Daniels are because Simon is ‘following in his father’s, well maybe not footsteps but you’ll

gather my meaning’ and again when Luce sneers that Joe’s influence would mean that 24

‘Simon would get to prefer the boys too’. After both of these taunts, Joe viciously beats 25

Simon suggesting to the readers that his ‘feelings of guilt are thus aligned[…]with physical

violence towards his son’, as his inability to express and understand himself comes to the 26

surface, and is articulated through violence. However the extent of his violence towards Simon only exacerbates the situation, as child abuse is not only a systemic social problem,

but also an incredibly taboo topic of conversation — especially within Māori culture. Joe

cannot bring himself to fully deal with his violent outbursts, recognising that he has an is-

sue: ‘you must be sick, man[…]I must be sick, but who can I tell?’. This in turn creates a 27

vicious cycle in which nobody discusses the issue, and there is more forced silence and emotional blockages. Joe, much like Kerewin, is suffering from a lack of self-knowledge, a

loss of identity, and a silencing of his soul. He may speak Māori, but from the beginning of

the novel until towards the end when he meets the Kaumatua (spiritual Māori elder), Joe is

drifting from his cultural heritage and unable to connect with his own identity. The post-colonial theorist Frantz Fanon argues that disconnection from one’s racial and cultural

background can be ‘psyche splitting’ and leaves an individual ‘completely dislocated’, 28

which, when applied to Joe, can explain why he is experiencing a ‘sickness’ of the soul 29

that causes his silent, emotional blockages. Fanon also writes about colonisation as a

whole, and how it destroys the cultural identity of a society through ‘a structure of colonial

domination’ which leads to a ‘collective aggression’ amongst the oppressed colonised. 30 31



Erin Mercer, ‘"Frae ghosties an ghoulies deliver us”: Keri Hulme's the bone people and the Bicultural 26

Gothic’, Journal of New Zealand Literature: JNZL, 27 (2009), 111-130 (p. 124).


Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, trans. by Charles Lam Markmann (London: Pluto Press, 1986) p. 28

112.


Renée T. White, Lewis R. Gordon, and T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, Frantz Fanon: A Critical Reader, p. 30

207.

Fanon quoted by Renée T. White, Lewis R. Gordon, and T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, Frantz Fanon: A 31

Critical Reader, p. 206.� of �7 27

This theory can be applied to the literary precedent of Māori male violence, often as the 32

result of a rupture of self-identity, meaning that Joe’s behaviour fits into a wider postcolo-

nial context.

When Kerewin eventually discovers the extent of the abuse, she initially retreats into si-lence, unsure of how to deal with her discovery:

‘What can I do? I can do nothing […] Say nothing to Joe — at the moment, I’d have

to bite my tongue though […] I could tell Joe, but not tell anyone else. Who else to

tell anyway? […] So what the hell can I do?33

Much like when Kerewin is discussing her paintings, her internalised speech is fragmented here, as she attempts to reach some sort of consensus over what to do. The gaps in her speech suggest a further, submerged and silent dialogue which the readers are not shown, as though we are receiving one side of a deeper, internalised discussion. Instead of confronting Joe, she opts to suppress the information until she is fully decided as to how she wishes to tackle the subject. This muted response to the abuse inflicted upon Simon

builds, emotionally obstructing Kerewin’s relationship with Joe, as she restrains herself

constantly, waiting for ‘a good time to tell him [her] mind on the whole bloody thing. Prefer-

ably with her fists’, whilst commenting that ‘we say nothing. Yet’. The isolation of the 34 35

word ‘yet’ from the rest of the sentence clearly prefigures the impending clash between

herself and Joe. This leads to one of the most memorable scenes in the bone people, as Simon, recognising the growing tension between Joe and Kerewin, coaxes the two into a

fight on the beach. Simon’s inner monologue provides a cyclical rationalisation that vio-

lence is how to solve silences of suppression and blockage:

See: Once were warriors (1990) by Alan Duff.32




� of �8 27

‘Get rid of the anger … stop the rift with blows, with pain, then pity, then repair, then

good humour again. It works that way … it always did.’ 36

Before Joe and Kerewin fight, Hulme positions the two characters ‘standing face to face’ 37

much like a hongi (a ceremonial Māori greeting enacting the passing of the breath of spirit

between two people), before Joe suddenly ‘lunge[s] for the child’. At this moment, Kerewin

speaks directly to the readers:

‘Blown his top!

Blown his cool!Berloody fool!’

She is screaming with delight inside herself, trembling with dark joy.

Fight. Fight. Fight. 38

Kerewin’s usually verbose speech gives way to repetitive, internalised exclamations,

demonstrating her excitement, and willingness to fight. This section shows a degradation

of Kerewin’s language into something completely unlike her usual speech, which is not

portrayed negatively by Hulme — instead serving as a freeing experience for Kerewin, al-

lowing for an innate and animalistic behaviour to surface. As her linguistic barriers crum-ble, it seems as though a primitive, perhaps maternal urge sweeps across Kerewin as she prepares to attack Joe for his treatment of Simon. The formatting of this section is also in-

teresting, with each cry positioned on its own line, and the rhyme between ‘cool’ and ‘fool’

offering a poetic inflection to the formal aspects of the scene’s presentation. The episode

contains the suggestions of the ancestral Māori war cry known as the ‘Haka’, specifically

the peruperu, which was traditionally chanted before battle to invoke the god of war. These

resonances in turn connect Kerewin to her Māori roots, ritualising the fight as it goes from

hongi to Haka. Yet Kerewin’s Haka is silent and internal, instead of being used to intimi-

date Joe it is as though she is calling upon a spirit within herself. The release from the




� of �9 27

blockage in this section comes after the two characters connect with their Māori selves,

standing in a hongi position, rooting themselves in the traditions of their ancestors. By en-gaging with their cultural identity, Kerewin and Joe (after their fight) reach an, albeit tempo-

rary, state of catharsis — releasing themselves from their silence, for a brief period.

However, whilst the fight on the beach serves as a release for Joe and Kerewin, Simon’s

silence is wholly different. Simon has never told anyone about his abuse, vocally or

through his own forms of communication. He tells Joe ‘through silent words’ that he cannot

tell Kerewin about his beatings ‘because she’ll know I’m bad’, demonstrating the condi39 -

tioning and warped thinking of a boy shaped by violence. Simon’s silence undoubtedly is

rooted in trauma, which as Petar Ramadanovic argues, is intrinsically linked with postcolo-nial forms of identity:

Both trauma and postcolonial narratives follow the same path to understanding

through withdrawal, self-absorption, and self-reliance […] the very process of form-

ing a posttraumatic or postcolonial identity. 40

After Kerewin discovers the abuse, her first reaction is to ask Simon: ‘“Why didn’t you say

anything?” There was pain in her voice, “Why did you keep quiet?”’, before commenting 41

on how Joe has made ‘him ashamed of what you’ve [Joe] done’. Simon’s silent blockage 42

does get released during the novel. We see Simon lose control of his silence again when he discovers the rotting body of Binny Daniels, something which Simon is incapable of

processing. He retreats into a silence, and is incapable of expressing himself to Kerewin.

Instead he opts for a more nihilistic approach, destroying properties and Kerewin’s guitar.

This explosion from Simon stems from a lack of understanding, as he internalises and at-

tempts to suppress the sight of Binny’s body. This is clear to the readers as his own inter-

nal, narrative voice is silenced during this section of the book, with the action being seen

the bone people, p. 171. 39

Petar Ramadanovic, quoted by Stef Craps and Gert Buelens, ‘Introduction: Postcolonial Trauma Novels’, 40

Studies in the Novel, 40 (2008), 1-11 (p. 9).



� of �10 27

through Joe and Kerewin after the discovery. As a result of Simon’s destructive reaction to

Binny’s body and inability to express himself to Joe and Kerewin, he ends up being beaten

more brutally than ever before in a way that ‘splinters the narrative’ , as each of the char43 -

acters partake in their separate spiritual awakenings. Up until this point the novel’s struc-

ture was entwined, with overlapping perspectives and key moments being shown through

each of the characters’ eyes. However after the brutal beating, the three strands separate,

allowing for each of their internal voices to narrate uninterrupted. In the moment before the beating, however, Simon does manage to speak just once in the bone people, recovering his voice for a brief second before Joe viciously attacks him beyond repair:

‘“Ah no.”

He hears himself say it. For one second the bonds at his throat loosen. And he is bitterly sick.44

Hulme chooses to only bestow Simon with speech to utter such a simple sentiment, which contrasts with the incredible severity and tension of the situation. In addition, his single ut-terance is isolated, once again, on a single line, it is not allowed to get lost in the muddle

of a large paragraph. Knudsen comments on Simon’s ‘spiritual voice’, which he recovers

after his vicious beating, which she argues gives him:

the imaginative space in which to be cast, not as victim, not quite as visionary in the strict sense of the word, but as the person in whom the vision, intuitive and intense,

resides. 45

Knudsen contends here that by enduring the suffering Joe inflicts upon him, Simon reach-

es a level of transcendence. This is not something I agree with, as I refuse to see the vio-

lence in the novel as something that can be construed as positive, however I do agree that

his silence serves as an imaginative space. In Keri Hulme’s short story A Drift in Dream

Eva Rask Knudsen, The Circle & the Spiral: A Study of Australian Aboriginal and New Zealand Maori Lit43 -erature, (New York: Rodopi, 2004), p. 166.


Eva Rask Knudsen, The Circle & the Spiral, p. 166-167.45

� of �11 27

Simon’s mysterious backstory is explored further. Hulme presents the infant Simon as a

mute victim, with his silence being a blockage rather than a choice. He is initially shown to

be the familiar Simon we see in the bone people: ‘At nearly two…he still doesn’t talk,’ as 46

Hulme plays with her readers’ expectations, falsely suggesting that perhaps he could nev-

er speak. Hulme refers to his ‘thin high screeching,’ which features in the novel, as well 47

as his ‘searing screaming that will not STOP’ during the car crash which kills his ‘strong

vivid mother.’ After the collision, Hulme illustrates the reality behind Simon’s muteness:48

the child says softly, questioningly,

‘Maman?’

he [the father] swings round catches hold of a hand a throat and shouts as he

bends ‘Don’t talk of her! Don’t talk of her!…don’t ever talk of her! 49

The first voluntary speech we see from Simon, is wholly innocent — asking for his dead

mother, and is met with intense, paternal violence. Hulme structures this section incredibly

carefully, building up to Simon’s sole utterance with two adverbs used to establish the im-

portance of his speech, and then isolating the word on its own line. After this moment, the story continues without the use of any punctuation, in an almost stream of consciousness

style, describing the father’s instant, visceral reaction to Simon’s gentle questioning. Some

critics, such as Antje Rauwerda construct Simon as a passive symbol of Māori retaliation,

as a ‘whipping boy for Māori frustrations’, with his silence being forced upon him as a sort 50

of penitence on behalf of all the colonisers. Other writers, such as Sabryna Nicole Sarver

resist Rauwerda’s take on Simon, pointing out that Hulme herself ‘shies away from the

idea that Simon is a symbol, and his beating is symbolic’ instead ‘addressing something

that she sees as a real problem in New Zealand culture[…] not just a Māori or a Pakeha

Keri Hulme, ‘A Drift in Dream’, in The Windeater: Te Kaihau, by Keri Hulme (Wellington, NZ: Victoria Uni46 -versity Press, 1986), pp. 195-206 (p. 204).

Keri Hulme, ‘A Drift in Dream’, p. 205.47


Keri Hulme, ‘A Drift in Dream’, p. 205-206.49

Antje M. Rauwerda, ‘The White Whipping Boy: Simon in Keri Hulme’s the bone people’, Sage Publica50 -tions, 40(2), 23-42 (p. 33).

� of �12 27

thing’. This essay is certainly more aligned with Sarver’s school of thought, but at the 51

same time I suggest that it is too easy to view Simon’s silence as just a response to New

Zealand politics, and is instead one of trauma (as well as resistance and possibility). Ana

Miller discusses the ‘damaging psychological effects of repressed and silenced trauma’

whilst also recognising the ‘numerous difficulties that surround the articulation and com-

munication of trauma’, which certainly applies to Simon after a lifetime of abuse. Whilst 52

trauma and postcolonial studies are often interlinked, when it comes to Simon’s traumatic 53

silence, I believe that this actually moves the use of silence away from being polemic and postcolonial, and towards a psychological use that establishes Simon as a thoroughly-

constructed character. The complexity of Simon’s silence is evidenced at the end of A Drift

in Dream as it concludes with the final words ‘the growing silence,’ showing Simon’s de54 -

scent into his speechless world. However the word ‘growing’ is extremely important, as it

establishes his silence as one of possibility, which can be explored within the context of

Māori belief of Te Kore, rather than finishing the story with a level of passivity that has

been viewed by some critics. The use of the Te Kore philosophy, as will be discussed later in this essay, transform the speechless gap from being a negative space of absence into

one of positive potentiality. This signals Simon’s transition from a mute victim into silent

survivor, taking control of his silence as we see him do in the bone people, using it as a tool to empower him for much of the novel.

Silence can also be used, both inside and outside of literature, as a form of resistance, as a way of reclaiming power and taking control out of the hands of the oppressors. This practice of refusing to engage is much like non-violent protest a method used against

colonial rule in India by Mahatma Gandhi; in Samoa by Lauaki Namulauulu Mamoe; 55 56

Sabryna Nicole Sarver, ‘Creating Aotearoa through discourse’, p. 76.51

Ana Miller, ‘The Past in the Present: Personal and Collective Trauma in Achmat Dangor’s Bitter Fruit’, 52

Studies in the Novel, 40(1/2) (2008), 146-160 (p. 156).

See: Steph Craps and Gert Buelens, ‘Introduction: Postcolonial Trauma Novels’.53


Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall, A Force more Powerful: a Century of Nonviolent Conflict (New York: 55

n.pub., 2000).

New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage, ’The rise of the Mau movement’ (2014) <http://www.nzhis56 -tory.net.nz/politics/samoa/rise-of-mau> [accessed 2 April 2015].

� of �13 27

http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/politics/samoa/rise-of-mau


and in New Zealand by Te Whiti o Rongomai. There a history of passive resistance 57

against colonisers, and this is why silence as a form of resistance features throughout

postcolonial literature. For example in another of Coetzee’s novels, Disgrace (1999) after

Lucy is raped she chooses not to report the incident, much to the bemusement of her fa-ther, resisting the societal expectation to press charges and move away. Instead Lucy mar-ries her rapist and decides against an abortion, distancing herself from her white South African heritage, opting to remain silent and try to become part of a redemptive and har-monious society, moving on from the violence and oppression of Apartheid. An additional example situated within post-Apartheid South Africa is another scene between Klytemnes-tra and Elektra in Molora in which Klytemnestra waterboards her daughter. During this tor-

ture, despite gasping for breath, Elektra remains silent […] endur[ing] the interrogation with

a courage reminiscent of a political resistance fighter’. Even as the torture becomes more 58

brutal, Elektra is resolute with resistance - the power of which is very clear on stage. Us-ing silence in drama is an absolute resistance of the form, as theatre relies so heavily on voice. A silent character in a play is always all the more noticeable, particularly when

paired with physical stillness. Klytemnestra eventually ‘explod[es] with rage at Elektra’s si-

lence’ who ‘will not relent’. Through the use of dramatic irony, the audience knows the in-

formation that Klytemnestra wants, and thus the audience are drawn into a silence of re-sistance as well - a complicit silence as we watch the torture. Both of these examples fol-

low Georges Bataille’s concept of ‘the sovereign silence’, as the oppressed refuse to en-

gage with language, rejecting its dominance. The theory of sovereignty is a demarcation 59

of boundaries, and is very much a silence of choice rather than one of oppression or blockage. The characters who choose this method of resistance, much like the non-violent protestors during colonial rule, are exploiting the performative aspect of silence, rather than the voiceless being ignored and pushed aside, their silence is dramatised. The power of this sovereign silence lies in the fact that it is far more difficult to force a character who

has chosen silence to speak, than to be silent — and it is in this space that silence as a

tool for resistance becomes its most powerful. Most significantly, for oppressed characters

Gene Sharp, Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice and 21st Century Potential (Boston: 57

n.pub., 2005).

Yael Farber, Molora, p. 32-33.58

Georges Bataille, quoted by Sarah Wood in Derrida's 'Writing and Difference': A Reader's Guide (London: 59

Continuum International Publishing, 2009), p. 137.� of �14 27

(such as the subaltern as defined by Spivak), silence is one of the only things that can 60

never be taken away. When someone's voice has been taken away, by seizing ownership of their silence they regain sovereignty and some degree of control. The power of silence and its contrast with speech is articulated clearly by Patricia Morrison, a public administra-tion theorist:

silence is all one has, or all one is allowed; silence is fear and talk is trouble; silence is shame and talk undeserved; silence is resistance and talk is cheap; silence is

golden and talk irrelevant; silence is privacy and talk is someone else’s cover; si-

lence is listening and allows talk to be heard.61

Silence is presented as an act of willed resistance in the bone people in a number of ways.

Simon’s muteness can be perceived as ‘a form of self-protection or as a gesture of resis-

tance’, as he takes ownership of his silence. As mentioned above, Simon is first seen as 62

a victim in A Drift in Dream whose speech is violently suppressed, but when we are intro-duced to him in the bone people he is a character who has chosen silence (albeit perhaps

subconsciously), resisting language which has been nothing but deceitful to him. Simon’s

muteness is not a physiological issue, but an entirely psychological matter — as a result of

his mysterious and painful past. It is worth noting, however, that Simon does not reject

sound entirely as he is still able to sing, laugh, scream, and cry — it is only language that

he has resisted fully as he has lived a life in which, as Susie O’Brien states: ‘words have

always been inconsequential’ and thus he rejects speech entirely ‘as communicative 63

double binds have apparently kept him silent’. It becomes apparent throughout the novel, 64

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘Can the subaltern speak?’ (1988) < http://www.mcgill.ca/files/crclaw-dis60 -course/Can_the_subaltern_speak.pdf> [accessed: 4 February 2015].

Patterson, Patricia M., ‘The Talking Cure and The Silent Treatment: Some Limits of ‘‘Discourse’’ as 61

Speech’, Administrative Theory & Praxis 22(4) (2000), 663–95 (p. 681).

Graham Huggan, ‘Philomela’s Retold Story: Silence, Music, and the Postcolonial Text’, The Journal of 62

Commonwealth Literature, 25(1) (March 1990), 12-23 (p. 12).

Susie O’Brien, ‘Raising Silent Voices: The role of the silent child in An Imaginary Life and the bone 63

people’, SPAN, 30 (1990), p. 83.

Eva Rask Knudsen, The Circle and the Sprial, p. 164.64

� of �15 27

http://www.mcgill.ca/files/crclaw-discourse/Can_the_subaltern_speak.pdf


that Simon was found by Joe and his wife, washed up on the beach like ‘jetsam’ . In Si65 -

mon’s section of the prologue, Hulme hints at Simon’s backstory, as a ‘nightmare voice’ on

board a sinking ship promises to ‘take care of him’, punctuated with a ‘barb of laughter in

his voice’ before leaving him to an almost certain demise. Simon notably uses silence as 66

a form of resistance when he is in hospital, where he not only continues to engage in literal silence, but also chooses to reject any form of communication entirely, shutting himself into

his own, isolated world — standing ‘unmoving[…]completely still’. This refusal to engage 67

with the outside world is a response to his separation from Joe and Kerewin, as he no

longer trusts those around him, with one doctor recognising this and commenting: ‘Man, he

loves that Gillayley’. By withholding and partaking only in a chosen silence, Simon is able 68

to reclaim some fragment of control over his life, every decision is being made on his be-half by doctors and social workers, meaning that isolating himself, and giving in to the

‘growing silence’ that is his deafness now, is his only slice of autonomy. Here Simon (both

through his muteness and deafness) is able to ‘interrupt articulated language’ allowing 69

him to regain some degree of sovereignty. After a while, one of the doctors finds ‘a way

in’ to Simon’s world and encourages his silence — telling him that ‘Great souls suffer in 70

silence’ inspiring him to continue fighting for Kerewin and Joe. This particular moment 71

triggers a shift in Simon’s approach to and use of silence in the novel, as he goes from us-

ing it as a form of resistance, to utilising it as something filled with possibility — the possi-

bility to reunite with Kerewin and Joe. It is here that the novel goes beyond a postcolonial literary use for silence as a means of resistance, and instead uses it as a tool for change and potential.





Georges Bataille, quoted by Sarah Wood in Derrida's 'Writing and Difference': A Reader's Guide, p. 137.69



� of �16 27

Simon is reliant on his facial expressions and hands to communicate in any form. As ob-

served in one of the Kerewin’s early descriptions of him:

You need eyes like an archerfish, able to see what happens on two planes at once. One set for watching the hands, and the other for watching whatever it is he

mouths.72

This description of Simon’s “speech” is particularly memorable, as Kerewin ostracises him

linguistically, reinforcing the sense of his otherness through descriptions relating to non-human forms of communication. Simon is a character with a surprising level of articulacy:

‘expressing himself in eloquent silence,’ as Eva Rask Knudsen suggests. However Si73 -

mon’s mute resistance carries certain risks, as his meanings are at times appropriated by

other characters, or simply ignored. Joe explains when he first meets Kerewin that ‘gener-

ally he [Simon] is either treated as an idiot, or deaf […] or they talk over him, as though

he’ll vanish’. Yet Kerewin is ‘different, decent’ and allows Simon to communicate freely 74

and without interruption. Knudsen suggests this is as a result of their ‘common outsider

status’ causing them to be ‘inextricably tied together from the first day’. Simon and his 75

muteness intrigue Kerewin, and she engages with him, after some initial hesitation:

A rare kind of expression comes over the boy’s face, impatience compounded with

o-don’t-give-me-that-kind-of-shit.76

This clearly shows not only how quickly Simon is able to gauge other people (‘probably

years of practice at non-verbal communication’ ), but also how natural and instinctive his 77

methods are, connecting with people on a primal basis. It is also key that the perspective


Eva Rask Knudsen, The Circle and the Spiral, p. 135.73





� of �17 27

here is from Kerewin, who immediately understands the nuances in Simon’s silent com-

munication. Out of Simon’s resistant silence comes the potential for and promise of a lov-

ing relationship, and this is where the novel moves away from more simplistic depictions of silence into the realm of Te Kore and potentiality.

The novel does not use silence in a simply polemic postcolonial way, its use becomes part of the deep psychological portraits that Hulme creates. It complicates the theme by em-

ploying the Maori concept of Te Kore an idea posited by the Māori tohunga Mohi Ruatapu 78

in the nineteenth century. It is not a literary term, but a belief that is fundamental to Maori

religion and spirituality. Te Kore translates into English as ‘void’, but the nuance of the full

meaning is lost. It is not simply an abyss of nothingness and emptiness, it is simultaneous-ly a space filled with possibility and potentiality. This gap is filled with a creative energy, where Maori traditions believe life is begun, and thus it is viewed as a positive expanse. Maori Marsden, a 20th century tohunga, defined Te Kore in the following way:

The infinite realm of the formless and undifferentiated […] the realm of Primal and

Latent energy from which the stuff of the Universe proceeds and from which all

things evolve. 79

the bone people employs the concept of Te Kore with Simon’s silence, as it ultimately be-

comes a space of possibility. As discussed earlier, the end of A Drift in Dream can superfi-

cially appear to be quite hopeless, yet the use of the word ‘growing’ is an important and

nuanced term that illustrates the space between the short story and the novel. This gap

between the two narratives is filled with Hulme’s own silence, as Simon’s story is not fully

completed. Within this void Simon transitions from the passive and silent victim to an au-tonomous and empowered character, rejecting language in favour of his own tools of communication. He is still being beaten brutally, but has not passively resigned himself to the violence, instead using his silence as creative and spiritual space. Simon is often

Translates approximately to ‘scholar’.78

Maori Marsden, quoted by Michael P. Shirres, Te Tangata: The Human Person (Auckland: Accent Publica79 -tions, 1997), p. 71.

� of �18 27

aligned by critics with the Māori god Maui (for example, Eva Rask Knudsen draws upon 80

several similarities between the ‘mischievous tricksters’), which is significant as Maui is 81

said to have created New Zealand by pulling it out of the void whilst fishing. Hulme has

stated that Simon appeared to her as a fully formed character in a dream, and is there82 -fore at a metatextual level a character who was created almost transcendentally within the pregnant Te Kore. Simon is also given agency in the novel and develops his own methods of communication from his silence; developing his own communicative identity out of the

space devoid of speech, in a way that goes beyond traditional methods - an ‘affirmation of

alternative linguistic possibility’.83

Simon’s creative form of self-expression shows him to be both adaptable and resilient, with

his silence being a pregnant space for creativity and possibility. Sarver comments on Si-

mon’s ability to create language as ‘he took Māori, English, sign, facial expressions and

hand gestures to create his own language’ , using the silence as Te Kore, where a new 84

and potentially improved language emerges. Dylan Gallagher highlights the significance of

hands in the novel, stating that Simon ‘uses his hands to communicate in more subtle

ways’ , as he refuses the grasp of individuals he does not trust, but is comfortable holding 85

the hands of Joe and Kerewin. Gallagher goes on to argue that:

For Simon, handholding is a way of bridging communicative and emotional chasms and connecting with people. When he is removed from Joe's custody, he laments

that there will be “No familiar touch, no handholding, no-one he knows”.86

See the work of: Antje Rauwerda; Georges Goulven Le Cam; Graham Huggan; and Anne Zimmerman.80


Author entry from The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature, eds. by Roger Robinson and Nelson 82

Wattie (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

Maryanne Dever, ‘Violence as Lingua Franca: Keri Hulme’s the bone people’, World Literature Written in 83

English, 29 (1989), 23-35 (p. 30).

Sabryna Nicole Sarver, ‘Creating Aoetearoa through discourse’ , p. 79.84

Dylan Gallagher, ‘Watch the Hands: Non-verbal communication in the bone people’, Deepsouth (2002) 85

<http://www.otago.ac.nz/deepsouth/2002_01/gallagher.html> [accessed 3 January 2015].

Dylan Gallagher, ‘Watch the Hands: Non-verbal communication in the bone people’.86

� of �19 27

http://www.otago.ac.nz/deepsouth/2002_01/gallagher.html

There is an immediacy with this style of communication, and Simon is able to develop a kinetic and far more intimate style of speech than would ever be possible with language. His silencing of language allows for the distillation of an embodied state of communication, which can function on more levels than traditional speech. Furthermore, Simon can see

souls (just as Kerewin can paint fragments of them: ‘I could make just one painting we

could all see a piece of soul in’), demonstrating the state of transcendence that he has 87

reached through silence. Whilst this is a concept that seems rather contrasting with the

gritty realism of the violence throughout the novel, Simon’s ability to see people’s souls is

never mocked, with Kerewin believing him wholeheartedly, reminding herself when trying

to conceal her emotions: ‘Careful Holmes, he can read souls’. There is an additional level 88

of communication running through the novel, which exists within the silent moments when

the characters are together, but unburdened by speech. This is similar to Simon’s singing,

a talent which he excitedly discovers he can share with others in Moerangi: ‘Icansing!

Icansing!Icansing!’. His music ‘is the only vocal advance Simon has ever made’, and is 89 90

important on a societal level as creative energy in Māori culture is believed to stem in part

from singing, with chants and singing of great significance within Māoridom. Here the nov-

el aligns Simon with Maori spirituality (in spite of his Pakeha status), and whilst this essay believes that the novel resists viewing Simon as a postcolonial symbol, this is an example

of Simon’s silence functioning on a higher plain. Whilst Simon and Kerewin use silence as

a space for possibility and communication more than any other characters in the novel,

Simon’s transcendental silence has an effect on Joe, as he thinks to himself how being

around Simon meant ‘you learned to read what people meant but didn’t say’. This is a 91

testament to the possibility of silence, demonstrating that it is not simply a space devoid of language, but one that is made up of real potential for alternative expression and commu-nication. Even more so, Simon proves that when communication can be far more effective when isolated and taken away from words, which can so easily confound true meaning and intention.






� of �20 27

The novel presents silence as a positive space for large parts of the novel, with it acting as

a constructive space towards the final chapters, which allows for a harmonious reunion be-tween the three central characters and their families. The final chapter describes the newly constructed marae as where the mauri ‘spins its magic in deep silence’, demonstrat92 93 94 -ing the possibility that lies within the silence of the novel. However, Hulme prevents a truly

easy and full resolution. By leaving Simon deafened by the abuse: ‘It’s all silence’, the 95

bone people shuts the character into a silent world by inflicting a silence of experience upon him. Whilst some critics have chosen to read this deafening as an allegory for race relations in New Zealand, I believe it instead forces the reader to see both the silence and

the abuse that run through the novel as part of the characters’ psychological portraits,

rather than as metaphors. However it is certainly possible to view the permanence of Si-

mon’s condition in the final chapters as a potential statement about the systemic problem

of child abuse in New Zealand, which is a problem that Hulme herself has discussed as 96

some length. The silence that has now consumed Simon fully prevents him from hearing 97

the music he loves, and solidifies his status as an outsider even further than his muteness.

Simon’s deafness and inability to engage with the reconciliation is the central tragedy of

the novel, and Hulme resists a clear reading of the novel by ending in this way. Arguably

Hulme’s unwillingness for her work to be read in a particular way is a meta-textual silence

of resistance, as she refuses to compromise, and shuts Simon out of the harmonious end-ing making the whole novel impossible to ever fully analyse as a satisfying postcolonial text.

Silence has been used throughout literature to explore the dynamics between individuals and groups. The contrast between the oppressed and the oppressors can be aptly demon-

Translates as ‘meeting house’.92

Translates as ‘life force’.93



New Zealand has one of the highest rates of child abuse in the developed world according to the OECD: 96

<http://www.oecd.org/els/family/43570328.pdf> [accessed 4 January 2015].

Author entry from The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature, eds. by Roger Robinson and Nelson 97

Wattie (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).� of �21 27

http://www.oecd.org/els/family/43570328.pdf

strated through the use of enforced silences and muting of characters. In postcolonial lit-erature, in particular, the relationship between the colonised and the colonisers are often explored overtly through the use of oppressive silences, demonstrating the racial and cul-tural tensions between the characters. Paralleling the passive resistance movements that took place in many colonised nations, silence is also used a tool of resistance, as the op-pressed regain control and sovereignty over themselves, as they demarcate their own boundaries. the bone people follows these literary antecedents in its uses of silence, and is undeniably a postcolonial text. But by adopting the Maori concept of Te Kore—and by compounding Simon’s active silence with the received silence of deafness born of vio-lence—the novel complicates and extends its use of the trope, making it form part of the

characters’ psychological profiles. The use of silence in this way prevents the novel from

being read as a postcolonial and allegorical text, in turn making the central issue of child abuse all the more unpleasant and uncomfortable for the readers.

� of �22 27

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somewhere other than my tongue

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