AUT Master of Creative Writing Thesis Exegesis - Scholarly ...

AUT Master of Creative Writing 2008
Shorty © Michael Botur 2009
To get to know Danny, Zebra Girl, Aro, Eve, Pieman, Mick, Iesu, Big
G and others, the characters need to dialogue on their own terms, in their
own language. It is no use treating these characters as if they have
predictable ethnographic identities because it is the incongruence of their
egos which defines them. Shorty is a dissection of some of the many
conflicted identities existing within New Zealand: self-hating immigrants,
juvenile voyeurs, hollow gym junkies, trash/haters, urban bumpkins,
desperate skinheads, orphaned aliens and cunning crooks. These
identities, whether known to each character or not, are responses to the
complicated opportunities in New Zealand which have shaken up the
roles of men and women, deconstructed religion, indigeneity and identity
and made one’s ethnicity a challenge rather than a right.
the facts.
As Graham Greene put it, We would forgive most things if we knew
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