'A Major Theme of Post colonial literatures is the Concern W
'Writing hands us back the reins...' Paul KellyPost colonial literature and imperial history pass like ships in the night. Indeed, the emblematic preoccupation of Australian literature: canonical and contemporary, with the post colonial status of Australia and the hybrid nature of her culture is testimony to the notion that Australia is entrenched in a crisis of identity, seemingly yearning for a defined concept of 'Australian-ness.' Literature is most often a forum for exploring the unsaid and the unaddressed within society and thus it makes sense that this journey for a 'place and a space: and an effective identifying relationship between the two' has remained a major concern for the Australian author; the search for a new language and imagery a long and agonizing one. There are complexities and perplexities surrounding the difficulty of conceiving how a colonized country can 'use language as a tool for revenge' in order to reclaim its identity 'in a language that is now but was not its own language, and genres which are now but were not genres of the colonized.' Certainly the images and constructions of 'Australian-ness' are hazy and although her n
' Lawson's reaction to non-White Australians in 'Brighten's Sister-in-Law' suggests that it is not just an inability to relate to the landscape that defines the Australian history but also an unwillingness to accept that which is not English, that which is not known: the other. ' It is through the literary works that have emerged in the last century that the deeply rooted problems of a transplanted culture has shown itself and indeed the very focus in Australian literature on debating the inability to define nor recognize a holistically Australian identity has prevented one from actually being expressed; writers are caught up in the dilemma of defining an Australian national culture rather than conveying an impression of one. ' As the story progresses the young couple are able to 'take gifts of grappa and firewood. ' Similarly the Anglo-Saxon couple are readily shown how to 'slaughter and to pluck and to dress' by the Macedonian family. Winton's concern with the importance of defining the self against the natural landscape is evidenced in the way the Anglo-Saxon couple must be taught by the new migrants to embrace nature where as the Macedonian couple are presented as much more accepting of change and the other and more willing to see the boundaries created by Anglo-Saxon heritage defeated than the older couple. Yet rather than, as Lawson does, try to create and the celebrate a 'bush and gums' identity, Slessor is more concerned with the idea that all Australians are displaced from the land, satirising the concept of a culture which can be defined as uniquely Australian. ' The two authors thereby explore the post colonial identity crisis of Australian society by questioning to what extent the poetic and the artistic can exist within the harsh setting of the Australian landscape where 'tiny birds/ sing in bright colours you would not hear. Hope, who wrote around the same war period as Slessor also begins his poetry with an indictment of Australian society, concluding with an implied sense of hope. Winton foregrounds the importance of landscape to the development of a national identity; as the seasons change so too does the couples attitude towards each other and towards the foreign Australian land. This is because it has been so preoccupied with either attempting to adapt its European heritage to an Australian lifestyle or searching for an Australian past that perhaps does not actually exist in order to identify with this strange and barren land; that a national Australian culture has yet to actually be presented in literary works. ' This interaction between the new and the old; between the white settler and the new migrant are further explored in Tim Winton's 'Neighbours' which, in telling the story of two couples problematises the connection between the suburban world and the natural world and the necessity to overcome this barrier in order to effectively identify oneself with a place. ' As such Lawson seems to convey that when something is not created in Australia and does not have its roots in English heritage then it is unnatural reducing the quest for an identifying place to a simple set of dichotomies.
Common topics in this essay:
Eastern Asiatic,
Kelly Post,
Tim Winton's,
Writing Australia,
Similarly Anglo-Saxon,
Australian-ness Lawson,
Lawson Reflecting,
Slessor Hope,
Hope Slessor,
John Kinsella's,
australian society,
national identity,
identity crisis,
attitude towards,
english heritage,
australian literature,
holistically australian,
post colonial,
effective identifying relationship,
relationship self,
australian lifestyle,
idea australians displaced,
|
Acceptance Essays
