Commentary on Big Brother, Little Sister by Witi Ihimaera
Louie Harden-Bull
Commentary on Big Brother, Little Sister by Witi Ihimaera
In the text ‘Big Brother, Little Sister’ by Witi Ihimaera we are shown a vivd scene of family violence. Ihimaera uses elements such as characterization, structure, imagery and tone to show the traumatic effects family violence can have on partners and especially children. He conveys this to us so that we can see the hurt and pain that will come of family violence especially for the people who do not have it in their life's.
One of the very first language features that Ihimaera uses is characterization focusing on the characters Hema and Janey. Our first description of Janey is when she “she began to peck at [Hema’s] dreams”. The verb ‘peck’ associates ideas of birds inability to defend its self with with Janey. It is from this that we start that she is much younger and more vulnerable that Hema which ties in with the ‘Big Brother, Little Sister’ idea in the title. This frighted image of Janey is reinforced throughout the scene as she “began to whimper” and “gripped Hema in fright”. Just as janey is characterised as being the ‘little sister’ Hema is shown to be the ;big brother’, in the way that he protects janey “don’t be scared” even though it is the worst fight he has eve heard. This also shows that hema takes matters into his own hands when he jumps on top of his mum to stop her from being kicked by the abusive father. However in his efforts to protect her he gets caught in the amungst the fight and get kicked himself. Ihimaera wanted to show us how younger innocent children are very vulnerable in these situations and that older childern can take matters into their own hands and caught in the cross fire. From this we learn that familt violence neededs to stop ot otherwise this will continue to happen and that out actions do not just affect us but those around us.