Mysteries of Austrailia in The Secret River by Kate Grenville

Respect for Aboriginal culture and traditions which is part of the Aboriginal reconciliation and integration movement in Australia is highlighted many times throughout Crow Country and illustrates the best and worst of Australians. The way different characters show respect towards aboriginal culture and feelings contrasts two different attitudes. Today, opinions about aboriginal life and culture are shared through politics, social media and protests. Kate Constable’s book portrays extreme behaviour with racism and provides the reader with a perspective on just how cruel people can be. We have a very superficial understanding about aboriginal culture and this novel encourages readers to explore aboriginal culture and beliefs.

It is crucial that we study Australian Narratives as it creates insights into events we may have not explored. This is evident in the novel "Crow Country" written by Kate Constable. It teaches us about Aboriginal beliefs and spirituality, Australia's History and respect, as we experience what it feels like to live in rural Australia, creating an understanding about Aboriginal people. Therefore, through a close read and study of "Crow Country", readers are able to learn new and important things about our past and present, showing that it is crucial to study Australian Narratives.

Australia is filled with many different aspects in which makes it the country it is today. I believe it is important to study texts that explore aspects of Australia by studying texts such as ‘The Club’, by David Williamson, a play written in 1977 about an Australian football club and movies such as “The Castle”, directed by Rob Stitch in 1997, about the daily life of an Australian family when their happiness is threatened when developers attempt to buy their house to expand the neighboring airport. Both these texts show us what Australian life was like in the past. By us looking at themes such as language, tradition and the mateship shown we are able to explore different aspects of Australia that make it what it is today.

In contemporary society, interpretation is an institutional practice with readers consequently sharing assumptions; highlighting the concept of interpretive communities. Audiences often respond to ideas based on dominant contextual norms and ideologies. The biased recount of Australia's sullen and discriminatory past has led to a collective ignorance; with awareness and redemption of the true atrocities committed by British Settlers being a new concept. Kate Grenville's raw and accosting novel the Secret River confronts readers, positioning them to challenge the socio-historical doctrines of the 21st Century society. Analytical readers can respond actively to issues of racism by acknowledging the intertextuality of the text and contemporary actions, and by recognising and contrasting prevailing attitudes. This process evokes an emotive response to uncomfortable notions and influences a remorseful reaction towards the Aboriginal community and their hardship.

Through the use of poetic devices, the author has successfully encouraged the audience to explore their thoughts on Australian identity and to reflect on our nation’s history.

Gilbert’s poem portrays many Aboriginals plight’s within Australia and conveys notions of despair, anguish and anger for his fellow Aboriginal comrades. Again, Gilbert uses strong visual imagery in “the anguished death you spread” which helps convey the persona’s feeling of horror and anger at the Europeans. This is further emphasised through the poet’s vehement and repetitive use of second person pronouns in “you” which conveys a sense of blame and accumulates into an accusatory tone and generates a strong sense of detachment between the author and the European settlers. Furthermore enjambment enhances the accusatory tone in “you pollute all the rivers and litter every road” because the lack of punctuation and pauses makes the lines sharp and quick, creating a sense of anger in the author. In addition the author’s use of metaphors in “humanity locked in chains” creates a sense of struggle and inability to escape the oppression the Aboriginals are in, whereby the word “chain” is symbolic for trapped and lack of freedom. Kevin Gilbert’s emotional poem brings light to the pain and suffering Aboriginals are going through, which is a stark contrast to the image of Australia, being a free and accepting

The notion of the contemporary indigenous identity and the impact of these notions are both explored in texts that have been studied. Ivan Sen’s 2002 film ‘Beneath Clouds’ focuses on the stereotypical behaviours of Indigenous Australians highlighting Lina and Vaughn’s journey. This also signifies the status and place of the Australian identity today. Through the use of visual techniques and stereotypes the ideas that the Indigenous are uneducated, involved in crime and the stereotypical portrayal of white people are all explored. Similarly the notion of urban and rural life is represented in Kennith Slessor’s ‘William Street’ and ‘Country Towns’.

The poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal, draws the realistic image of the confronting realities of alienation and displacement of Indigenous Australians. It is because of such experiences that has empowered Noonuccal to express and advocate learning from experiences by positioning the audience to view the horrors that occurred, creating a platform for her poetry. Through the emphasis of identity, it allows the audience to deeply connect with the past, determining and illustrating a profound link between the ancient past and contemporary present. Oodgeroo’s deep connectivity with art and poetry highlights the importance of learning from experiences, for not only the Aboriginal culture but, for all cultures, and that colonisation does not destroy self-identity. Through the poems The Past and China…Woman, it has allowed the individual to promote change, encouraging the survival of cultures through learning from past experiences

Characters in the text The Secret River by Kate Grenville represent a variation of attitudes and views towards the colonisation of Australia and the Aboriginal Australians. While many characters are indecisive about their opinion on the natives, some characters have a clear mind-set on how they are to be treated. The characters of Thomas Blackwood and Smasher Sullivan represent the two very different sides of the moral scale, and the other characters fit between these sides. Smasher is a vicious, cold-hearted man who shows no respect or humanity towards the Aboriginals. On the other hand, Blackwood’s character contrasts Smasher with his humanity and general respect to the original owners of their new home. The

Theatre is a powerful way of exploring the key concerns of Australia and its people, successfully portraying Australia’s past and the conflict between two cultures. The secret river adapted by Andrew Bovell effectively uses themes in a powerful and meaningful manner through theatre in which this enables the audience to relate to and further develop their understanding of Australia’s history. Themes are explored thoroughly throughout the play that signifies different aspects with relevance to Australia’s long history, including Cultural differences, racial dominance, and ownership. Through the use of themes combined with literature techniques, it invites the audience to think about the complex relationships between personal and national

Gary Disher’s socially provocative Australian historical drama novel The Divine Wind (1998) set in the Australian pearling town of Broome, provides a thought-provoking and contemporary outlook on racial prejudice, isolation and the loss of rights to adulthood during the onset of World War11. Disher establishes this through a range of characters of differing ages and cultural backgrounds, evoking a war-devastated Australia and its effects on young adults forced to leave their childhood behind. Written as a series of melancholic recollections, the seemingly simple novel conveys the messages of a violent history, as it explores the complexity of the relationships between racially diverse characters during the onset of WW11. The novel follows a young and ambitious Hartley Penrose who faces challenges with discovering his maturity/identity, serving as a transition from his past to his future. The Divine Wind utilizes the characters’ ideas, experiences, beliefs, and values to explore the central themes, the racial prejudice between the white race and other ethnicities, the regional and urban divide and the growing up and loss of rights to adulthood. The Divine Wind utilizes conventions and ideas from the drama genre to communicate these central themes which are still prevalent in today’s modern society.

Australia’s identity has always been a complicated one. Starting with Aboriginal genocide, 1800’s cowboys and villains, two world wars and a bunch of poems describing them, it makes it difficult to conclude on what being an ‘Aussie’ really is. Thankfully, the two thought-provoking poems Nobody Calls Me a Wog Anymore by Komninos Zervos, and My Country by Dorothea Mackellar both use their discerning selection of themes to reflect modern attitudes in some extent. Along with their themes, Nobody Calls Me a Wog Anymore and My Country both use their story to capture the attributes modern Australians possess to some degree.

Grenville portrays how secrecy and distrust are an issue among differing people groups through the figurative language used to describe the landscapes and behaviours of various characters. One example is towards the end of the book, when Rooke is looking out into the bay. He sees how the “wide dark flatness” of the water and shore has “retreated into the night”. This darkness is symbolic of the deception and fraudulence that Rooke had been mulling. The abundance of the darkness is used as a comparison to the excess of deception among the British settlers, who were often disguising their true aims and intentions behind sincerity and inclusion. Despite the darkness the moon still shone out over the water like a “wide eye” but was unable to light up the whole foreshore. This demonstrates how even though some secrets may be uncovered there is often more deceit hidden. Grenville further establish distrust through the fear of the description of the trees as “gnarled pink monsters” with “twisted arthritic fingers”. By Rooke also referring to the land as made “according to a different logic from the world” Grenville is portraying the British settlers as viewing NSW as both foreign and terrifying because they no longer understand it therefore creating rift of distrust. The words “gnarled”, “monsters” and “twisted” also depict a fear of the land and all that it might hold because these words hold negative connotations of a horrifying and terrifying appearance or façade.

The construction of Aboriginality in Australia has been achieved through a variety of processes, in various places and at various levels of society, giving rise to a complex interaction between the constructions. At the local level, the most striking line of tension may seem to lie between what Aboriginal people say about themselves and what others say about them. But crosscutting this is another field of tension between the ideas of Aboriginality (and non-Aboriginality) that people of all kinds construct and reproduce for themselves, and the constructions produced at the national level by the state in its various manifestations, the mass media, science, the arts and so on (Beckett, 1988).

When you’re flying over south-east Queensland and underneath you are the distinctive, sinuous curves of the Brisbane River, you know you’re home. The river is why our city is here. Its waters carved the landscape out of ancient rock and laid down fertile flood plains. It’s a highway and an obstacle to passage. Even in modern times, there are Brisbanites who rarely venture across the river to suburbs on the other side. A source of food and water, transport, communication and recreation over millennia; life-giving, life-taking. The Brisbane River has many stories. This is one of them….