A Critical Analysis of The Descendants

First of all, I really loved this writer's voice. She has a unique, clever way of saying some things that made me chuckle and reread them. I often found myself underlining more sentences that I enjoyed and appreciated than were relevant to the class. However, I found more instances in which her statements and ignorant comparisons made me uncomfortable and I quickly began to doubt whether or not her writing reflected a white elitist view of Hawaii and if she really was "one of them."

I had a problem with the way Hawaii was initially depicted through the description of The Club, the suburban residential areas, and the tourist saturated beaches and streets. The author attaches a mildly sarcastic tone to these descriptions but shamelessly centers her story around the lives of a rich, educated, white family with numerous connections and privileges. There are a few sentences thrown in that allow the reader to question this issue, like on page 80 Mike asks Scottie "What kind of Hawaiian are you?" This touches upon an important theme in the book, making readers think about the various cultures and racial identities constantly mixing in the basin that is the Hawaiian islands. Whenever certain awkward phrases were used like, "They're like missionaries" or "It also makes me feel like some kind of colonist to have Esther around," It made me want to throw the book across the room. If you are a rich white male living in Hawaii, there is no acceptable way to reference the presence of your pidgin speaking nanny as colonialism. There were also times when Mike would make comparisons like, "I'm like lava, slowly approaching and altering foundations forever," or touch upon his wife's hula group and their practice sessions in the living room. The writer continues to ignorantly weave a web similar to every Mid-West tourist's ideology as they step off the plane and expect hula dancers to give them lei's and Mai Tai's.

The presences of pidgin in this novel is immediately given a negative light and is quickly shut down with an educated English rebuttal. On page 19, Mike argues with Esther, the pidgin speaking nanny, about the harm of lard in Scotties diet and whether or not fat is good or bad. She states, "Is good fat. She so skinny. This good fat," and Mike follows by shutting her down. However, the information he provides on healthy foods and the medical recommendations for preventative measures is only shown as thoughts in his head, which allows the reader to believe that his white literate views are obviously correct and the nanny's opinions are horribly wrong because she hasn't "read the blogs." When Scottie chooses the meal containing lard, over the meal of vegetables, it shows the difference between Scottie relating to a culture that eats lard and speaks pidgin and the rest of the women in her family who represent the skinny exotic models plastered across all commercial postcards and Hawaiian vacation advertisements.

- Jessica St. Martin