Symbolism In Rabbit Proof Fence

Since the European settlement of Australia, the Indigenous people have been represented in a myriad of ways. The Rabbits (1998), an allegorical picture book by John Marsden (writer) and Shaun Tan (illustrator) and Rabbit Proof Fence (2002), a film directed by Phillip Noyce, are just two examples of this. Techniques such as music, changing camera angles and symbolism are utilised in Rabbit Proof Fence to represent the Aboriginal people as strong-willed and spiritual and in The Rabbits, exaggeration, different colour themes and perspective are used to portray the Aborigines as technologically inferior and overwhelmed against the Europeans. In both texts, the Indigenous people are represented as

the incessant brutality of racism in the 1920s. Rolf de Heer’s 2002 art house feature film The Tracker, represents one of the most “unspeakable aspects of Australian history” (Smaill, 2002, 31), explicitly depicting the extreme racism, violence and inhumanity the egotistical European invaders inflicted on Aboriginals, whilst at the same time glorifies and treasures aboriginal culture and intelligence through film.

Although released over 17 years ago, Rob Sitch’s comedy The Castle remains an incredibly popular film that portrays an ‘Aussie Battler’ family, the Kerrigans, in suburbia. Film writer Ian Craven states that the Kerrigans possess “the qualities of a simple good-heartedness family, with human decency and dignity”, all of which can be easily recognized by the audience throughout the film. The Castle takes a satirical look at Australian suburbia in order to manipulate traditional stereotypes, gender constructions, themes, identities, ideologies and cinematic techniques as a means of altering the positioning of the audience.

The Rabbits, a picture book written by John Marsden and illustrated by Shaun Tan, is an allegory for the British arriving in Australia and the subsequent colonisation. From the perspective of the indigenous population, Marsden explores the impact of white settlement on the traditional aboriginal way of life. This is achieved through the symbolism, colours and language.

This metaphorically suggests that the rabbits have already begun to construct their homes, and now nobody can stop them. Their forceful invasion into the native indigenous landscape is further emphasised by the dead lizard featured in the foreground, which has been brutally squashed with seemingly no remorse. Furthermore, the buildings in the background are entirely formed by jigsaw pieces. Thus Tan presents us with a visual allegory of the rabbit society as manipulative and un-relentless nature.

How each character’s relationship relates to native Australians grows for better or worse throughout the novel. The novel also shows how Grenville has incorporated each personal lifestyle and how it co-exists with the other. The novel incorporates past and modern views about each society and brings to attention controversial issues about Australia’s convict past and how Aborigines are being ostracized for their way of life and skin pigmentation.

Rabbit Proof Fence has been published both as a book and as a movie. Being a reader or a viewer entirely changes our point of view on the story. As a reader, we get descriptive insight on the situations and emotions of the characters. We are then able to re-create these visually using our imagination and have endless freedom doing so. As a viewer, our creativity is somewhat restricted. We do not imagine the characters’ physical appearance, the locations or the overall situations in the same way as in a book. These elements are already given to us. Throughout this essay I will be exploring how the music and the filming creates a contrast between reading the book with elaborate descriptions.

In the opening of the film, the three girls are learning how to hunt for lizards by their mother. It highlights the traditional Aboriginal culture in contrast with the Western culture (shown later in the film). When the children arrive back home, they are carefully observed by a police officer from afar. They are seen chatting to a man who is working on one of three rabbit proof fences. These fences were 3,253 kilometres in length and spans across Western Australia. It is here that we learn Molly’s father is white and has left their mother to work on another section of the rabbit proof fence. Suddenly, a white constable, under the command of the Chief Protector of Aborigines, A.O Neville, arrives and forces the three girls in an automobile with their family chasing after the car

In the texts Redfern Now and The Rabbits, similar ideas about cultural relationships and power positions are conveyed through many different textual contexts and conventions. Whilst some of the ideas explored in these texts are comparable, many contrast the different ways that euro centricity and “white” dominance function within societies, especially with regard to Indigenous Australians. Through the clever use of camera angles and symbols in Redfern Now, and symbolism and written text codes within The Rabbits, the ideas of disempowerment and power relationships between Indigenous Australians and European settlers is examined. In the television drama Redfern Now, the creators explore the undermining racism within modern-day society. The values

Discuss the symbolism and motifs in the ‘Rabbit Proof Fence’. What do they represent and how do they contribute to the story?

‘Rabbit Proof Fence’ was the story of a 3 young Aboriginal girls who were taken from their homes because they were ‘half castes’ and then their long walk home following the rabbit proof fence. The idea of the government taking children from their homes and placing them into the care of white people in the hope of them losing their cultural beliefs was stronger. This idea of them being changed was evident with quotes such as “This is your new home. We don't use that jabber here. You speak English” providing the idea of whites being dominant through their values.

The film Rabbit-Proof Fence by Philip Noyce takes place in 1931 in a small town named Jigalong in Western Australia. Along the town is a rabbit-proof fence that runs for miles through the Australian Outback. The film focuses on three aboriginal girls, 14-year-old Molly, her younger 8-year-old sister Daisy, and their 10-year-old cousin Gracie. The officers removed the girls from their family and forced them to assimilate into white society. The chief A. O. Neville legally removed the aboriginal girls from their family because they were half-castes which means they are half one white parent and one Aboriginal parent. In this case, the girls had an aboriginal mother and a white father who was a worker near their area, but the father in not take part in the girl’s life. The Chief wanted to take away all the half-castes from the Aboriginal homes so they could eventually breed the aboriginals out of existence as well as give the half-caste a better life in their modern society. These camps held lots of indigenous children and trained the children to become laborers and servants for the white families. Soon after arriving at the Moore River camp, the three girls escaped after the first night and made a 1,500-mile journey home. Molly, Gracie, and Daisy left as soon as it began to rain so their tracks could be covered. Although at the camp, the workers soon noticed the girls had escaped and sent the Aboriginal tracker to go find them and return them back to Moore River camp. The girls later found the rabbit-proof fence and followed it north to find Jigalong. On their way back to home, they met an aboriginal man who told the girls that Gracie’s mother was in Wiluna and she could take a train to meet her. Soon after Gracie parted ways, the tracker captured Gracie and they returned back to Moore River. Daisy and Molly continued to follow the fence and finally arrived home to meet their mother. Although, the family had to leave to go hide in the desert in order for the family to stay together. After the movie ends, there is a short clip of the real Molly and Daisy in 2002. The captions said that Gracie did not survive her way back to Moore River Camp and she was never seen again. Molly also stated that the government took

“Jesus be a fence all around me every day. Jesus, I want you to protect me as I travel on my way” (Wilson 1.2.21). The play Fences follows the journey of an African American family, the Maxons, and their struggle to handle the appearance of both physical and metaphorical fences. Fences shows the difficulties that the Maxons face in an attempt to balance love, loss, and laughter. The Maxson family lives in Pittsburgh during the 1950’s, and they meet tensions when searching for equality within their relationships and in their larger community. Throughout the play, tension builds between characters. To portray this tension, the author, August Wilson utilizes the narrative elements of parallel plots through storytelling, developing characters

The recent Australian film, Rabbit Proof Fence, similarly condemns the social, political and cultural mores of colonial and post-colonial Australia in relation to its past treatment of indigenous Australians. Like To Kill a Mockingbird, it too, is set in the 1930’s and reflects similar attitudes and values whites have to black people. The film is a true story based on the book by Doris Pilkington Garimara, the daughter of one of the half-caste children in the film who, together with two other Aboriginal girls, was forcibly removed from her family in Jigalong, Western Australia. These children form part of what is now known as the “Stolen Generation”. They, like many others who lived in the first part of the 20th century, were the victims of the official government assimilationist policy which decreed that half-caste children should be taken from their families and their land in order to be made “white”. The policy was definitely aimed at “breeding out” Aboriginality, because only half and quarter caste children were taken.

The movie, Rabbit Proof Fence, directed by Phillip Noyce, tells the story about three young aboriginals girls’ name, Molly, Daisy, and Gracie, who were taken away from their families and homes to be brought up in white society. The girls are related; two sisters and a cousin. The story reveals the struggles the girls encounters while trying to run away from Moore River, which is a settlement camp where half-caste native (children with both white and Native parents) children are educated on how to live with white population. The girls are taught to become servants, and they are prohibited from using any other language but English. The settlement camp where these girls are held is far away from their home, which separates them from their