Ms James' 2024 12 Lit Class Blogs - Aus Lit

"Savages." “Uncivilised.” This is what the Aboriginal people were labelled as. For their natural way of life, rich culture and traditions. But who was prejudiced against them? Who stole their land? Who massacred them? The Aboriginal people have been the victims of injustice since the colonisation of Australia, when a fleet of 11 British ships arrived at New South Wales on January 26 th , 1788. Prior to British settlement, more than 500 First Nations groups inhabited the continent. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples lived on the land for at least 60 000 years, making them the custodians of the world’s oldest living culture.   However, it was called terra nullius, meaning “land belonging to no one,"   to justify occupation without treaty or payment.  There were over 250 genocides  over 150 years, as an organised attempt to eliminate Aboriginal people. The mass killings were carried out by the British soldiers, police and settlers working under the com...

Will Modern Dreaming ever become Reality?  *sniff* Life is nothing  like ©High School Musical. *sob* Yes, it hit little 12-year-old Leah hard  when the ground-breaking realisation that highschool would be nothing  like dancing on a basketball court with Zac Efron finally settled in. *sigh* There was a flurry of emotions and feelings within her little head, but the biggest one? Betrayal Why had this false image, this unrealistic expectation, this naive hope, been planted in her heart from her wee little beginnings? Who had the right to be spreading misinformation, leading little children astray in the harsh, cruel world of PowerPoints™ without transitions between slides, overpriced canteen food and *gasp*... ugly school uniforms... I'd like to think that my good friend Samuel Wagan Watson had the same unpleasant realisation on the eve of the 2000 Olympics, when he realised that maybe Australia wasn't everything it saw itself to be. ===============================...

Why Everyone Should Read Henry Lawson’s ‘The Drover’s Wife’ ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman left alone in the bush with her family, in possession of a good long stick, will try to bash the brains out of any snake that dared to show its beady little eyes.’      Whilst not the beginning to ‘ Pride and Prejudice’ that Jane Austen had in mind, Australian colonial writer Henry Lawson believes otherwise in his short story ‘ The Drover’s Wife’ (1892) centred around an unnamed drover’s wife who protects her children from the dangers of the bush such as snakes. Before we delve into the rabbit hole that is Lawson’s story, you might ask ‘Why on earth would I read Australian colonial literature?’ My response is: ‘Why wouldn’t you?’ What makes Australian colonial literature so fascinating is how it contributed to constructing Australian identity as unique to its British heritage through its representations of t...

  Welcome back aspiring poets!  After last week's journey into post World War 1 modernism, this week we return closer to home to consider the work of local Brisbane poet Samuel Wagan Watson. Of course, anyone familiar with Wagan Watson's poetry will be familiar with the recurring theme of Australian identity and what it means to be Aboriginal in modern Australia, but have you ever noticed the frequent references to roads and cars?  Wait, who is Samuel Wagan Watson you say? Well if you've never pondered the multi-layered representation of Australian suburbia in " white stucco dreaming " or spent an afternoon lost in the enticing images of childhood innocence in " brown water looting " you are seriously missing out! Wagan Watson is a multi-award winning Australian poet of Aboriginal (Munanjali) and Irish/German descent. Born in 1972 and raised in Brisbane, his Smoke Encrypted Whispers (2015)  won the New South Wales Premier's Book of the Year, the Kenn...

  Hello again! If you want to explore feminist Australian poetry or are struggling with analyzing poetry in Year 12 Literature, you’ve come to the right place. Today I am talking about: 'Woman to Man' by Judith Wright. It’s a poem that is as relevant and interesting today as when it was published in 1949 due to the idea it puts forward about feminism, which remains important in discussions in Australia. It's 1949, and against the backdrop of the post-war error and still prevalent gender roles, Judith Wright pens the feminist poem "Woman to Man". World War 2 had ended for Australia in 1945, with 1949 being a part of the post-war period, which was when Australia focused on rebuilding and recovering from the aftermath of the war. The sense of hope and renewal, characteristic of the post-war optimism in Australia, is evident throughout the poem, with the poem's focus being on new life and creation. The war was also a shift for Australian women, as during the war...