AustLit

Activity Eight: Revealing Saria's World

In the interview with Kim Wilkins, Eaton reveals that he started writing a prologue outlining the history of this world. However, he abandoned this idea and, instead, the world is revealed as Saria moves through it. In this way, only information that is directly relevant to the story is included.

With this in mind, as students read, they can create a retrieval chart (see table below for a suggested format) on their digital devices or in their workbooks. This can be completed as they read the novel. An example entry has been provided for each column.

At appropriate points in the novel, stop and discuss the role of the setting in the novel, that is:

• What opportunities for story telling does this setting offer?

• Why not set the story in a world more like our own?

As an extension, have students evaluate to what extent Eaton draws on conventions of Low Fantasy (i.e., fantasy set in a world where supernatural elements are used sparsely).

Activity Nine: Inserting the Fantastical into an Australian Landscape

Eaton states that reading The Stone Mage and the Sea by Sean Williams ‘lifted a veil’, that is it showed him how the Australian landscape could be used for a fantasy novel. Even if students have not read both books, teachers can provide them with extracts which allow students to compare the way the two writers use landscapes with which they are familiar – in the case of Sean Williams this was sand dunes at Port Gibson in South Australia and for Eaton it was the Australian desert. Both of these settings are very different from typical fantasy which can have a very European landscape of snow-capped mountains and forest.

In Nightpeople, the landscape is arid and in his interview with Wilkins, Eaton says that ‘it is such an ancient, intimidating, psychologically fantastic landscape that we live in’. He claims that in the desert we live on the edge of sanity and because it is so big, we turn in on ourselves. At this point, it might be worth reading 'The Bullocky' by poet Judith Wright and consider how this poem picks up on this idea and students can discuss the poem's influence on the atmosphere of the novel.

Then, as students read the novel, they can consider how these ideas influence the representation of setting, characters and events in the story.

Activity Ten: Mapping the Darklands

a. In Nightpeople (and, indeed, across the series), Eaton has consciously used a technique where he begins with the micro and gradually zooms out, moving the horizon further and further.

To gain a sense of this, re-read:

• Chapter One (pages 13-16) where Saria is focusing on and reaching into the lizard

• compared to Chapter Two (page 35) where Saria and Dariand emerge from the valley: ‘At the top of the ridge she gasped as the horizons of her world expanded...’.

Compare this technique with other stories they might have seen or read such as:

• the opening scene of the series Lost which famously begins with a close-up of an eye and then the camera gradually pulls back to reveal a man lying in a bamboo patch.

• Chapter One of Valentine by Jodi McAlister or The Stone Mage and the Sea by Sean Williams, which both begin with a broader world.

Students can discuss the opportunities that each approach offers and the possible limitations.

b. The geography of the Darklands might be challenging for readers. Consequently, it could be useful to collaboratively create a rough map as students read the novel.

Consider Eaton’s approach to zooming out and start with mapping the valley in Chapter One. Then stop at various points in the novel to expand the map and add new locations, e.g., the view from the ridge in Chapter 2, the place Saria first meets Dreamer Baanti, Woormra, Olympic, the Darkedge, the Shifting House and so forth.

From clues in the novel, students will also need to consider the shape and size of the Darklands. Students should try to infer what is beyond the Darklands and where the Nightpeople live. As an extension, Anthony Eaton says that he did a lot of painting and sketching while writing the book. Students could try their hand at creating visual representations of key locations based on descriptions in the book.

Activity Eleven: Alluding to Prior Cultures

Students are to (re)read the following extract carefully.

In groups, they should discuss the following:

• What clues does this extract contain about the ‘times before’?

• What do you think is ‘embedded in the smooth rock’? Why does Eaton not tell us directly?

• What other clues are there throughout the book about the times before? (For example, see the landbridge in Chapter 7.)

• Why is Eaton so indirect in telling readers about the old world? What is the effect of even the smartest people in the society (such as Dariand and Dreamer Wanji) knowing little about the past? Read the story of the Darklands in Chapter 17 for comparison.

• Besides the ability of some character to reach, what clues in the novel suggest that this world is both like and unlike our own? For example, consider references to camels on the one hand, but vaultlights on the other.

• What inferences do you make about this story world? Could this be a version of Australia? Is it another planet? Is this a completely fantastic world?

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of the storytelling approach adopted by Eaton?

Activity Twelve: Archetypes and Creating Three-Dimensional Characters

According to the Oxford Dictionary, an archetype is a typical example of a certain person or thing. They can be useful because they can help readers to know the characters quickly and tune in to the story without too much explanation or description. In fantasy writing, there tend to be a range of archetypal characters, for example, the hero (often the Chosen One), the shadow, enemies, allies, the mentor and creatures of nightmare. You can read more about archetypes here and here.

a.In Nightpeople, Saria appears to be an archetypal Chosen One who seems destined to save the people of the Darklands. Before proceeding, students can consider the following:

• Eaton says that Saria’s name is based on a biblical character, Sariah. Conduct an online search and discover the significance of her name (Note well: Eaton’s memory as recounted in the video is not quite accurate.) How might Saria’s name be significant?

• In addition, in Chapter One, on the night Saria is born, a constellation of three vaultlights (i.e., stars) appear which Dreamer Wanji calls The Child. This constellation makes later appearances, including in the epilogue when Dariand follows ‘the cluster of the Child towards a distant, glowing horizon’. Given these references, what is their connection to Saria and what do they symbolize?

b. Saria also fills other conventions in fantasy such as the orphan boy or girl with special powers (which they might or might not be aware of). While these archetypes can be useful, authors must be careful to avoid flat and overly familiar, clichéd characters; they want their characters to seem real, that is three dimensional (or round).

Students can consider:

• How has Eaton tried to ensure that Saria is a three-dimensional character?

• Are other fantasy archetypes present in the story? If so, who? Is Eaton successful in making them well-rounded and three-dimensional? Students can consider the naming of other characters in the story (e.g., Slander) and their possible significance.

As an extension, students can make connections between the characters in Nightpeople and other Australian fantasy novels. For example, they might compare the character of Saria with:

• Lady Helen in Lady Helen and the Dark Days Club by Alison Goodman

• Sal in The Stone Mage and the Sea by Sean Williams

• Ashala Wolf in The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf by Ambelin Kwaymullina

Activity Thirteen: Focalising Character and Viewpoint

In novels, authors have two key choices to make

1. Who sees? This involves the choice of focalisation, which in fantasy novels (or any story for that matter) can be critical.

2. Who speaks? In particular, is the story told in first, second or third person.

Both of these choices play a role in positioning readers. For Nightpeople, have students consider:

• How do we know that Saria is the focalising character?

• As a result of this choice by Eaton, what information is it easier to reveal and conceal in the novel?

• Even though Saria is the focaliser, the novel is still written in third person, as if an observer from outside the story is narrating events. What difference would it have made to the novel to be told in first person? Why do you think Eaton chose third person?

• How does Eaton encourage readers to empathise with Saria?

• What difference would it have made to the novel to have a different focaliser e.g., Dariand, Dreamer Wanji, Slander, Baanti, or even one of the Nightpeople? To help students understand the importance of focaliser, they could be asked to re-write key scene from another character’s perspective.

Activity Fourteen: Character Arcs

While plot is important in a story (generally something must happen to keep readers interested), the way a character (especially the protagonist) changes and evolves in parallel to those events is also crucial. What happens in the emotional development of the characters (and their relationships with other characters) is what helps readers engage more deeply with the novel. Using BLM 1: Character Arc for Saria, students can record her development across the novel. In doing this, students should ensure they pay special attention to the development of the relationship between Saria and Dariand in particular.

Then, they can discuss:

• Does Saria change during the course of the novel? How?

• What triggers any changes that occur?

• What understandings or lessons might a reader draw from these changes?

If desired, students could produce character arcs for other significant characters also. For example, is there evidence of change in Slander across the story?

Activity Fifteen: Understanding the Plot and Story

The plot is fairly straightforward and linear in Nightpeople. However, students may still need to reinforce their understanding of the events and the teacher may wish to check this understanding. Here are two suggestions for doing this.

a. Ask students to form small groups and create freeze frames of key scenes, trying to capture not just what happens, but also character feelings and reactions, and atmosphere. Take photos of these and use them in Part (b).

b. Organise story events on a timeline, making use of the photos taken in Part (a). While events unfold in a fairly straightforward manner, students will still need to determine:

• the length of time that passes between the prologue and the events of Chapter One

• where in the timeline the events of The Shifting fit

Tip: Another way to keep track of what’s happening in the novel is to give each chapter a three or four-word title.

Activity Sixteen: The Importance of 'Reaching' to Plot Development

An important element of the plot is the ability of various characters (including Saria) to ‘reach’, part of the magic system of this fantasy novel. As Eaton discusses in his interview with Kim Wilkins, he developed this element thinking about how one lives with an indifferent landscape, i.e., a landscape completely indifferent and unresponsive to our human needs. Reaching was a means of connecting to the land rather than merely walking across the surface.

As indicated, this ability becomes a vital element to the plot. In Chapter One, it is almost like a game to Saria – or at least a way to pass her time in the valley. However, it quickly becomes more than that when she hears her name called: ‘The call came through the earth, from somewhere far outside the valley’ (p15).

Ask students to track the increasingly important part this ability plays in the story and in gradually redefining Saria’s role within the story.

For example:

• Why does Dreamer Gaardi warn Saria not to tell anyone she can reach? (See Chapter 4. This is also reinforced in Chapter 14 when Saria talks to Gan.)

• What is the significance of the scene where Saria gets inside Dariand’s head in Chapter 14?

• At the end of Chapter 16, Saria resists Baanti’s attempts to probe her mind with devastating effects for him. What repercussions does this have on the way she is perceived and on the way the story subsequently unfolds?

• What are the implications of discovering in Chapter 22 that other women might also have the ability to reach?

Students should find further points in the novel where the ability to reach plays an important role in the story’s development.

Activity Seventeen: Choice Points

Stories progress not just through a series of events, but also by placing choices before the protagonist. These choices can have both good and bad consequences for both the protagonist, but often for other characters around him or her as well.

For characters such as Saria who fill the archetypal role of the Chosen One, sometimes choice is taken away from them; destiny determines their fate. In another Australian fantasy novel, Lady Helen and the Dark Days Club, the eponymous hero is not just a Chosen One, however, but also a chooser; that is, she is allowed a genuine choice and (to an extent) takes control of her own destiny. In Chapter 22 of Nightpeople, Saria complains to Dariand about her lack of agency (the ability to act to influence her own life):

Her lack of power is reinforced by scenes in which the people of Woormra and then the Council of Dreamers meet to determine her fate.

Taking these scenes into account, ask students to consider:

• What choices (if any) is Saria allowed to make by Eaton? Do these have positive or negative outcomes? For whom?

• What choices are made by key characters in the novel that affect the direction events take or the way that relationships evolve, for example Dariand’s decision to keep his true relationship to Saria secret until Chapter 31? What other choices could have been made?

• Saria finally makes some big choices in Chapters 31 and 32. Why does she make the choices that she does? Although readers can’t know for sure, what can be inferred about the outcome of her final choices (see pages 376-381)? Extension: If students read the sequel, Skyfall, they may have a clearer idea of the consequences of Saria’s decisions.

• What might the outcome of various choices reveal about Eaton’s attitudes and values?

Activity Eighteen: Tracking Motifs and Themes

Stories can include elements that the author repeats. When these repeated elements are concrete things (such as the star cluster called The Child) they are called motifs; repeated elements that are more abstract (such as trust) are called themes.

In Nightpeople, significant themes include:

• Trust and suspicion

• Secrets and lies

• Destiny and (lack of) choice

• Environmental degradation

• Decay

• Under-estimating children

Students should be asked to find evidence for these themes and motifs in the novel. Then, students can discuss:

• What role do these themes and motifs play in the novel?

• Are some of these more dominant or important than others? How do they interrelate, e.g., the way Saria is underestimated and the lack of trust she has in the adults and their actions?

• Taking into account the way the story resolves itself for various characters, what appears to be Eatons’s position on these matters? How do they influence your interpretation of the events of the novel and the behavior of various characters? Is there general agreement in your class about these interpretations?

As students work through these questions, they can refer to their discussions as a part of Activity Four: Anticipating themes.

Extension: A number of these themes are shared with other novels, e.g., trust and suspicion, secrets, and choice and destiny all feature heavily in The Stone Mage and the Sea by Sean Williams and Lady Helen and the Dark Days Club by Alison Goodman. These, therefore, could be a useful basis for choosing novels to compare.

Activity Nineteen: Solastalgia

a. Ask students to find out more about the neologism, solastalgia. Here are a couple of good starting points:

• Have you ever felt ‘solastalgia’ by Georgina Kenyon

• The age of solastalgia by Glenn Albrecht 

• Solastalgia by Fiona Walsh

b. Even though Eaton was not aware of the term (and it was coined a number of years after the novel was published), he does concede that it captures his own sense of anger about the state of the environment. With others in the class, students can discuss:

• What relevance might the concept of solastalgia have for a reading of Nightpeople?

• Even though an environmental catastrophe forms the backdrop to the book, is this actually a novel commenting on humans’ treatment of the environment? Explain.

Activity Twenty: Cultural Appropriation

An issue that is raised with Anthony Eaton in the interview with Kim Wilkins is the use of what appear to be parallels between the Darklanders and Indigenous Australians. As Eaton is not Aboriginal, this could leave him open to accusations of cultural appropriation.

Eaton does admit that this is something he struggled with when writing: he didn’t want to ignore Aboriginal culture especially given the setting was the Australian desert, but nor did he have the cultural permissions, knowledge, etc. He tried to solve the problem by mashing up western, Indigenous and Asian cultural references, drawing on lots of different mythologies, and ultimately creating his own mythology and concept of magic.

Students should view the section of the interview where this issue is discussed and then consider the following questions:

• What traces of western, Aboriginal and Asian culture can you find in the novel?

• What does Eaton mean when he says that it would have been an act of colonialism to ignore Aboriginal culture when writing the story?

• How well do you believe Eaton avoids unacceptable cultural appropriation?

• Why does cultural appropriation matter?

Students might find it useful to read extracts from the Australia Council publication, Protocols for Producing Indigenous Australian Writing.