Women Empowering Women

The novel Shark Dialogues by Kiana Davenport depicts life through the eyes of multiple female characters, each with their own ties and emotions to the islands. The story begins with the journey of Kelonikoa, a Tahitian princess, to the island of Oʻahu for a pre-arranged marriage; a marriage she does not want to partake in. Kelonikoa escapes from the city of Honolulu before the wedding can take place, taking shelter in the forest. She meets a haole man, who had fled to the forest after being named a cannibal, and they fall in love. As the story progresses, it focuses on the female characters in the many generations of Kelonikoa’s bloodline, and ends with her fourth generation granddaughters in Hawaiʻi circa 1990s. The fact that a majority of this story was written from a female perspective is quite interesting because when traced back to Ancient Hawaiʻi, females were viewed as less than men, although some scholars argue against this perception, and not even allowed to eat in the same huts. Throughout the novel, the struggles of living in Hawaiʻi are portrayed through the eyes of female characters.

In the times before Hawaiʻi had encountered Western contact, Ancient Hawaiians had no concept of land ownership, so the kapu system forbade certain things due to the sacredness associated with them; the kapu system played an important role in the division of men and women. In an Ethnography written by Milton Diamond, published by UH Manoa, it is discussed that although women had rights and some even had great status, “it was kapu for them to eat certain foods; they could be put to death for eating pork, certain kinds of bananas or coconuts, and certain fish” (Diamond). Additionally, poi and taro (staple foods for Hawaiian culture) had to be eaten out of different bowls by men and women. Although the kapu system had control over eating regulations, there was no kapu on men and women having sex. In Shark Dialogues, Kelonikoa was sent to Hawaiʻi for an arranged marriage, an agreement that could not be broken; similar to bonds made through the kapu system. Her decision to flee from the marriage and take refuge in the forest gives insight to the strength and resilience that is present throughout the rest of the novel, as displayed by female characters. Her actions also demonstrate a new wave of empowerment for women, not allowing the kapu system and marriage agreements to dictate their lives.

The story continues on from the forests of Oʻahu onto the Big Island of Hawaiʻi, and then back to Oʻahu. Kelonikoa traveled to the Big Island and back with Mathys, and as the amount of Western contact within the islands increased, their relationship began to change. Mathys became obsessed with owning businesses and having the company of other, wealthy white men while Kelonikoa grew in her love for the islands, assisting women who had become prostitutes, locals who had become homeless, and keeping herself rooted in the culture. This insight into their relationship shows how vast the change was that came with Western contact; women suffering from the hardest blows. Women became objects for sailors and haoles to use and abuse, that even Mathys was dreaming about them. “If occasionally he was unfaithful in his dreams, it was only with the wenches of the street, caterwauling whores who made love in the alleys bent over fish-head barrels” (Davenport 55). Women were used, bruised, and broken by the abuse of men, contracting STDs, having children out of wedlock, degrading their own bodies; Kelonikoa going out of her way to fight for and aid these women. Mathys, on the other hand, along with most of the other haole business men, became sucked into a life of luxury and wealth. Mathys came from a background where all families around him were becoming something, so he did what he could to make himself a better life; ultimately driving Kelonikoa away, “the more he retreated into that world, the more she broadened hers” (Davenport 56). Kelonikoa’s strength and endurance to preserve the culture of the land she wasn’t from while it was slowly being taken away by haole demonstrates the heart and determination the females in the novel have for the islands of Hawaiʻi, whether they have haole blood in them or not.

As the story comes to an end, it focuses around the lives of the fourth generation of Kelonikoa and Mathys’ family, four granddaughters coming back to Hawaiʻi for the death of their grandmother. The novel begins and ends with the relationship of these girls with their grandmother, and shows how the annexation of Hawaiʻi soiled family ties. Pono, the grandmother, is a strong, beautiful, Hawaiian woman who experienced the worst of the worst: working on plantations, getting raped, having her family arrested. Pono is just one example in the novel of the immense struggles of women growing up and living in Hawaiʻi. Pono’s granddaughters also faced lives full of criticism, not only from peers but also from their grandmother, for being hapa, meaning half Hawaiian and half another ethnicity. This mixed race (hapa) is something that is encountered everyday in Hawaiʻi because of the plantation workers, locals, and haoles building families together. So Pono’s granddaughters not only have to deal with the criticism for their blood from Pono herself, but also each other. In a section of internal monologue for one granddaughter, Rachel thinks, “…Vanya next door smelling of haole, I can smell it through the wall. God, she carries it around like a trophy” (Davenport 208).

Although it is a fictional story, women had and continue to have the short end of the stick in Hawaiian culture and around the world, and it’s an issue very prominent in this novel. Starting with Kelonikoa, women in the novel were treated and viewed as pieces of meat or objects to be played with, which is why it is such a powerful novel. Davenport doesn’t play down any of the struggles that were faced and continue to be faced by women, especially women of mixed race, and this allows the reader to see the story through the eyes of the victims. Davenport utilizes strong female characters to show that no matter how strong a woman thinks she is, others will continuously try to bring her down and use her in some way to benefit themselves. It is good to see the feminist moving so far forward recently, but doesn’t history tend to repeat itself?

Works Cited

Davenport, Kiana. Shark Dialogues. New York: Atheneum ;, 1994. Print.

Diamond, Milton. "Sexual Behavior in Pre Contact Hawai‘i: A Sexological Ethnography." Pacific Center for

Sex and Society. University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1 Jan. 2004. Web.

<http:// www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/2000to2004/2004-sexual-behavior-

in-pre-contact- hawaii.html>.

photo credit: Nichole Chaffin