“This story right, this story’s true, I wouldn’t tell a lies to you” The use of 1st person narrative engages the reader and shows the authenticity of this text. This helps to demonstrate the readers show the lost identity of the aboriginal culture and his emotions of feeling displaced, unaccepted and unhappy. This couldn’t be helped as the Europeans became the dominant population. “And how they fenced us in like sheep” The use of a simile helps to demonstrate on how much the Aboriginal were restricted and thus causing a negative effect. The restrictions include traditions causing cultural knowledge to be
Furthermore, indigenous writers have expressed anger and protest towards the loss of their culture to white civilization. Oodgeroo Noonuccal is a poet who seeks to raise the issues of the native land title and the oppression of Australian Aborigines. "Civilization" comments on the effects of white civilization on Aboriginal people. Throughout the text, various poetic techniques such as imagery, irony, tone and point of view, as well as poetic form are used to express deeply held views about the values and issues
An example of this is ‘the miner rapes the heart of the earth’. This has a defiant, strong and extremely persuasive affect upon the reader. Another technique is by ending the poem with a strong and empowering tone. Walker switches the violence of the miners to the violent love of the land through the empowering of Aboriginal’s to join forces to end mining. This technique leaves the reader feeling elevated, empowered and able to develop a strong sense and understanding of the message of the poem.
As the Aboriginal children waited at the station that took them away from their homeland, the British colonists yelled orders at them over the bustle of the trains. One can only imagine what these children thought, stripped away from their families while white people shouted at them. Through the abuse of children and the separation of families, colonization majorly affected Aboriginal society. The Aborigines’ sense of identity slowly faded being taken away as the injustice of the colonists’ acts increased. The loss of control over their land and children was the outcome of colonization.
Conversely, negative changes are portrayed by The Bradfords whom fight fear with abandonment. Compelled by the pressure from the plague the villagers of Eyam are also forced to challenge and revaluate their morals and beliefs. Forced to change under siege of the plague Anna Frith undergoes a dramatic
This postcolonial idea is emphasised when the indigenous people are considered sub-human and among the wildlife (“Government of Western Australia, Fisheries, Forestry, wildlife and Aborigines”). This categorisation of the Aboriginal people by the British settlers highlights their inner belief that they are the superior race. In addition to this, the Europeans assumed that the Aboriginals were unclean and uncivilised human beings which is seen when Mr Neville states “I was a little concerned to see so many dirty little noses” and forces them out of their homes to Moore River as a result of a false scabies epidemic. The irony in this movement is that the majority of Aboriginals were healthy and, through the colonising power handed over to the settlers, they also reduced the rations of soap given to the Aboriginals. The first Australians were labelled savages, less than human, by the colonising British settlers who forcibly took over
The character of Smasher Sullivan is effectively used by Grenville to demonstrate how such prejudice allowed settlers to ‘dehumanise’ the ‘savages’. Sullivan uses the females as sex slaves, offering one to Thornhill for his ‘use’, bragging that ‘she done it with me and Saggity…like a couple of spoons’. While we, the modern reader, recoil in disgust at this blatantly hideous treatment, declaring such heinous behaviour to be the province of years gone by, it is Thornville’s reluctant refusal of Sullivan’s offer, coupled with his belated guilt that ‘(h)e did nothing to help her’, that asks us to question whether we would indeed help. Indigenous people have been subjected to the same lack of help, the same guilty indifference, in modern times. This type of prejudice is not always manifestly obvious; rather, it is subtle and systemic, the kind that allows people queuing at a bus station to step over an Aboriginal woman lying on the ground, assuming that she is intoxicated when in fact she has suffered a stroke.
The American public was led to believe that this population was the enemy and that they needed protection from him. This meant removing the unjust from the just society (Austin, James & Irwin, John, p. 15). The consequences of mass incarceration are its achievements. It is the salt in the wound that history created. A common falsehood is that the Black man picked up his hat and walked out of his community (Alexander, Michelle, p. 179).
These support the notion that interconnectedness is a fundamental aspect to our lives. Colin Long’s article ‘The Myth Of Belonging Masks Our Insecurity’ explores the dynamic, fluctuating nature of belonging in today’s society, referring to the banning of the Australian flag during the ‘Big Day Out’ festival. The writer opens with vernacular language and low modality, e.g. “perhaps as a sign”, “I wondered why…” to create a conversational tone, engaging the reader and personalizing the discussion. The first paragraph concludes with “how dare anyone ban the carrying of the Australian national flag – especially on Australia Day?” The indignant tone highlight its irony, since that is exactly what had happened.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1992) express their growing concerns of the destructive consequences of alienation and the suffering that results of this. Influenced by the rapid growth of technology and environmental concerns of their composing times, they illustrate their concerns from different perspectives. Both texts explore the suffering of the environment when one isolates themselves or neglects the natural world. Shelley who was heavily influenced by the principles of Romanticism and was personally exposed to writers and poets who believed in the sublime and rejuvenating power of nature, focuses on the suffering that can occur when one isolates themself from the natural world. It is when Victor