Pouliuli

In Pouliuli, a novel written by Albert Wendt, Faleasa Osovae awakens to find the life he’s been living all along is a mere façade. Pouliuli invites readers into the Samoan community of Malaelua, which is turned topsy-turvy when Faleasa misleads his aiga and community by acting maniacal. Albert Wendt ties a famous Malaelua saga about a mythological hero named Pili to Faleasa Osovae’s life. In the myth as well as in Faleasa’s story, they both had the same goal, which was to live the rest of their life “free”. To accomplish this goal, they both had to accomplish three tasks. Pilis’ tasks were to eat a mountain of fish which the giant’s had caught that day, to race the giants down a river, and make himself disappear. Faleasas’ tasks were to destroy Filemoni, Make Moaula the new leader, and remove Sau and Vaelupa as council leader. Of course they couldn’t have done these tasks alone so both of them enlisted help from friends. Pili enlisted the help of Tausamitele, Lelemalosi, and Pouliuli. Faleasa enlisted the help of his long time friend Laaumatua and his son Moaula. Finally to get the freedom they so wished for they had to complete one last task. In Pili’s case it was to divide his kingdom among his children while Faleasa had to r

. . .

View the whole essay, without interruption

Faleasa was aware of the tragic end to Pili’s saga and didn’t do anything to change the outcome. Faleasa examines some of the meanings of the saga and concluded that

…like Pili in his bitter old age, he too had voluntarily jumped up, as it were, into a living death, into the living darkness of Pouliuli. In conclusion things could have gone smooth sailing for Faleasa if he had noticed that Pili’s saga were similar to what he was going through and could have changed the outcome but instead followed the same steps as Pili into the darkness of Pouliuli.

That same night Pili vanished from Malaelua. Each of them are successful but in the end comes up short and fail to achieve what they had set out to do. Some Malaeluans claimed that he had jumped up and been swallowed by his friend Pouliuli and would refuse to become visible again.

As each tasks is completed the next task gets much tougher. Pili wants to be restored into a human while Faleasa wants to live the remaining years of his life free from the duties he had as a leader. Still, if Faleasa knew the outcome of Pili’s saga ended tragically why didn’t he do anything to change the outcome of his story? Could the reason why Faleasa didn’t change the final outcome of his plan be because he thought that myths were just myths and could not be possibly true? Was he so sure that his plan would work that he didn’t realize that his plan was exactly like Pili’s? Was he trying to shatter that myth by proving that he could obtain the freedom he so desired? Those questions will not likely be answered for only Faleasa knows the answer. (29)

In Pili’s saga Lelemalosi is described as a person having strong flight.

In both scenarios there is a mirror image from Pili’s saga to Faleasa’s. They are continuously hungry and will always be willing to eat even though they’ve just eaten. (He had always been amazed by his son’s physical strength.

Just before evening lotu Faleasa saw Moaula arriving from the plantation with a heavy load of taro.

Lemigao was always hungry, or so it seemed to Osovae.

Approximate Word count = 1316
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Simply subscribe to view this paper, and 100,000 others.