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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
This paper is an offshoot of a larger project which explored the possibility for
the erstwhile settler-colonizer undergoing the sea-change into settler-indigene emergent
through a study of selected novels of Patrick White. It became apparent to me that the
convict figure, who played an ancillary role in these works, could lay claim to the status
of white indigene well ahead of the main protagonist. Robert Hughes (in The Fatal
Shore) discredits the idea of any bonding between the convict and the Aborigine but
acknowledges examples of "white blackfellas"—white men who had successfully been
adopted into Aboriginal societies. Martin Tucker's nineteenth century work, Ralph
Rashleigh, offers surprising testimony of a creative work which bears this out in a context
where Australian literature generally reflected the national amnesia with regard to the
Aborigine and barely accorded them human status. Grenville's The Secret River (2005),
based broadly on the history of her own ancestor, appears to support Hughes' original
contention but is also replete with ambivalences that work against a simple resolution.
This paper will explore some of the ambivalences, the 'food for thought' on aspects of
the Australian experience highlighted by these literary texts, and glances briefly also at
variations on the theme in Carey's Jack Maggs and the The True Story of the Kelly Gang. (Author's abstract)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Last amended 17 Dec 2024 11:24:47
https://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/coolabah/article/view/15703
Sea-change or Atrophy? The Australian Convict Inheritance
Coolabah

Subjects:
- True History of the Kelly Gang 2000 single work novel
- The Jindyworobaks 1979 anthology poetry criticism extract
- Fear and Temptation : The Image of the Indigene in Canadian, Australian and New Zealand Literatures 1989 single work criticism
- The Secret River 2005 single work novel
- Searching for the Secret River 2006 single work criticism
- Literature and the Aborigine in Australia 1770- 1975 1978 single work criticism
- Writing the Nation : Patrick White and the Indigene 2009 single work criticism
- Voss : A Novel 1957 single work novel
- A Fringe of Leaves 1976 single work novel
- The Fatal Shore : A History of the Transportation of Convicts to Australia, 1787-1868 1987 single work non-fiction
- Ralph Rashleigh, or, The Life of an Exile 1929 single work novel
- Jack Maggs 1997 single work novel
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