The epic genre is known for its celebration of the achievements of community heroes and several other features. This article argues that Witi Ihimaera's The Whale Rider conforms to the requirements of the epic genre, although the author used it to promote progressive ideals among Māori. It is therefore not a simple celebration of the heroic acts of the protagonist as would be the case with traditional epics. By setting the story in the present and through Kahu, the heroine, Witi seeks to inform Māori and the world that leadership is no longer reserved for men as most epics tend to imply. The struggle between progress and conservatism which characterizes this story indeed constitutes a cultural dilemma facing modern societies. When the progress represented by Kahu defeats the conservatism led by the aging leader Apirana, the main message of the story crystallizes from the epic cultural milieu of which it is made. Is The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera an epic story or a novel? There is no straitjacket answer. As Chatman explains, no literary work is a perfect representation of a certain genre (18). The decision to classify a literary work in a given genre depends on that work's tendency to exhibit characteristics of a given genre. In other words, classification is an integral part of the reading process and is even a matter of judgment. For example, the novel is a very fluid genre (Mwangi, 42 years old). It can encompass aspects of epic, drama, poetry, etc. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that The Whale Rider is fundamentally an epic tale, but that the genre has been subverted by the author's modernist/progressive agenda targeting his New Zealand Maori community. In doing so, the discussion will examine how history was woven...... middle of paper...... that literature reflects life which, of course, evolves. Works Cited1. Chatman, Symour. History and discourse: narrative structure in fiction and cinema. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978.2. Kate, Kinsella et al. Prentice Hall Literature: Timeless Voices, Timeless Themes. New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc., 2005.3. Mansure, Lynne. Sundiata. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers, 2006.4. Mwangi, Evan. “Gendering: Questions of Feminist Identity and Subversion of the Epic in Margaret Ogola's The River and the Source” The Nairobi Journal of Literature 1 (2003): 42-53.5. Petrova, Mwangi. “The four seasons: a question of style in European literature” The Nairobi Journal of Literature 6 (2010): 2-16.6. Wanjiku, Kabira. Oral literature. Nairobi: University of Nairobi Press, 1988.7. Witi, Ihimaera. The whale rider. Essex: Pearson Education Limited, 2012.