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How Does Steinbeck Present Gemmy As An Object In The Novel

Decent Essays

Set in the mid nineteenth century in Queensland, Australia, Remembering Babylon is a literary piece that employs primarily the use of a third person point of view, as well as incorporating various creative literary techniques in order to tell the story of Gemmy, a blended and in-between raced boy. Gemmy is introduced as a mysterious figure that emerged from ‘the land over there that was forbidden’ for the white settlers (2). Gemmy was on the ‘top rail of the fence, hung there’ with his arms out and then said to Lachland ‘Do not shoot.. I am a B-b-british object!’(3). Here Gemmy presents and sees himself as being an object. An object more specifically, is merely a thing or an item. The term itself is degrading when in reference to a human being. …show more content…

Gemmy represents two cultures and two worlds: black Indigenous and the white English. The novel is chiefly concerned with the white consciousness and the reaction to the Indigenous peoples culture. The novel also explores colonial culture and is told from the white settlers perspective. It is evident to the white settlers, the country that Gemmy ‘had broken out of was all unknown to them’ and impenetrable (7). Verisimilitude (real to life) is a technique that was also employed by Malouf in order to provide evocative images for readers. Powerful imagery and descriptive language infuses Remembering Babylon in order to evoke emotion from the reader. In regards to the problem of racial difference in the novel, Gemmy himself is described as a ‘creature’ whilst is also referred to by Lachlan as ‘it’ (3). Dehumanizing and degrading, this description and reference allows for readers to be confronted and have their minds filled with ideas about the isolation and objectification that English settlement entailed and inflicted upon society during the

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