Hello again,

It has been quite some time since I’ve dedicated myself to updating this blog, as I’ve been rather busy developing my new business. I have started taking free Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs, as they are commonly referred to), and this has given me an outlet for learning and writing, which I have sorely missed.

The following analyses are in response to a peer assessment from my “Australian Literature: A Rough Guide” course (of which the deadline has now passed, so I feel free to post my “answers” publicly). I included the prompts because these topics were not of my own brilliant choosing, but they are nonetheless thought-provoking.

This was an exercise in brevity, as I had to objectively analyze rather dense and important national and cultural writing in less than 200 words! A stretch for me, as I tend to lean toward the side of verbosity. I think the end result came out quite well. I will not post summaries of the works cited because it would be far too long and tedious a task, but most of the literature can be found online or bought for a reasonable price. The works I have chosen are well worth the read, as are many other Australian pieces!

Just a side note: These views are my own. While you may take from them concepts, ideas, and curiosity (which I hope you do!), you may not take from them literally. You should form your own opinions of the pieces. In other words, PLEASE DO NOT PLAGIARIZE.

Australian Literature: A Rough Guide

Peer Assessment

1. Choose a specific passage of text from week 1 – it doesn’t matter how long – and describe how you think it constructs a locale or place.

*Instructors’ Notes: “How do you feel it?” Construction is demonstrated via imagery, description, feeling, narrative, etc.

Tim Winton’s In Land’s Edge: A Coastal Memoir was my first sampling of Australian literature, and I was surprised by how vividly he constructs place through narrative. He speaks of Australians as “surrounded by ocean and ambushed from behind by desert – a war of mystery on two fronts.” The language, “surrounded”, “ambushed”, “war”, invokes feelings of fear, especially as he laments on our lack of control over either: “…we cannot subdue or comprehensibly understand…” His line, “The desert is a spiritual place… and the sea the mere playground of our hedonism,” gives an exaggerated sense of the people’s thoughts who call this place home, and furthers our understanding of Australia – and Australians – as wild and untamed by his passage, “Nowhere else on the continent is the sense of being trapped between sea and desert so strong as in Western Australia.” Without resorting to simple descriptive prose of the landscape, at least until page three, Winton has already given us a glimpse of life in Australia through his powerful selection of language: Australia is rough and wild, and the expanse of the land and sea is contrasted against the narrow living space on the beach, the only habitable place – the “edge.”

2. What was the most interesting perspective on injustice that you encountered in the readings for week 2? Refer to any or as many texts as you wish.

*Instructors’ Notes: What was new or different to you in terms of injustice? What surprised you? What was new to your sense of literary elements, for example: how it’s different in its method of communicating the content?

The most interesting perspectives on injustice were in the contradictions; we tend to think of justice as straightforward, but in two particular texts, “For the Term of His Natural Life” by Marcus Clarke and “A Convict’s Tour to Hell” by Francis Macnamara, justice – and therefore injustice – is framed by the individual, whether ‘lawman’ or ‘convict’, or even the outsider, Mrs. Frere. In Clarke’s work, these two viewpoints are contrasted heavily. While Mrs. Frere and the convicts see the torture of these men and boys as cruel and unnecessary, the keepers of justice, Maurice Frere and Captain Burgess, view their treatment as deserved. Even in the extreme, as in ‘One Hundred Lashes’ or in the jumpings-off to which Mrs. Frere became exposed, the men are convinced they aren’t to blame. Likewise, it is this reversal of roles present in “A Convict’s Tour to Hell” where good versus evil, just versus unjust, are called into question. We find that the men charged with keeping order in life are tortured in Hell for their tyranny, and the convicts, so abused in life, are free to ascend to Heaven – their petty crimes assuaged by their gross mistreatment.

3. Week 3 focused on stories that all had some relation to history. How important do you think historical reality is for the literary imagination? Present your view by referring to any or as many texts as you wish (from any week).

There’s always an inevitable bias by the writer or by those in power, so historical accuracy is often blurry, at best. Perhaps not as important as the actual details or accounts are the concepts, feelings, and emotions in the context of an event. For example, consider Ned Kelly as a legend versus a historical figure. From the outset, he is wrongfully accused, so his personal history isn’t based in reality. The only accounts of Ned Kelly that can truly be seen as historically valid are his letters, such as “The Jerilderie Letter” (which still undoubtedly contains certain bias), but the legend of his injustice takes precedence over historical accuracy. For example, Peter Carey’s “The True History of the Kelly Gang” is largely speculative, though his work is based on real people and true events. Clarity is key: whether a text is based on real events with fictional characters, completely imagined or biased intentionally to exemplify a theme, a text which contains historical figures but may intentionally or unintentionally be historically inaccurate, or as accurate as possible, such as the field journals of early explorers. Otherwise, the reader is misled in knowledge and may even feel betrayed.

4. Compare two different versions of ‘home’ in Australian Literature that you encountered in week 4. Refer to more than one text.

*Instructors’ Notes: Make a comparison by geographical context or descriptive elements or family obligations, etc.

I find it intriguing that two writers have such contrasting views of their homeland’s habitability, and which they prefer: the interior or the coast. For A.D. Hope in “Australia”, the writer finds that “…her five cities, like five teeming sores… each drains her… where second-hand Europeans pullulate… on the edge of alien shores.” He compares the coastal cities to Europe, with “… the chatter of cultured apes/Which is called civilization over there,” viewing them as devoid of spirit. Hope finds solace in “The Arabian desert of the human mind,/Hoping, if still from the deserts the prophets come.” On the other hand, Christina Stead’s “For Love Alone”, particularly ‘Sea People’ insists “There is nothing in the interior…” She refers to the “endless dust” and “the salt-crusted bed of a prehistoric sea”. However, her description of the coast is rather picturesque: “The skies are sub-tropical… suns and spirals… a reflection of the crowded Pacific Ocean, with its reefs, atolls, and archipelagos. It is a fruitful island of the sea-world…” Although Teresa leaves Australia for Europe, she recognizes that Australians are born of water, “…‘Men of what nation put you down – for I am sure you did not get here on foot?’”