Remembering Babylon


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  • Created by: GLandery
  • Created on: 16-05-19 07:03
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  • Remembering Babylon
    • The danger of expecting/assuming power and authority
      • Lachlan and his progressive mindset
        • The symbol of the stick which Gemmy instantly recognises as violence
          • "That was just a stick, but that did not mean it was harmless"
      • British control over the Natives; colonisation
        • "boundaries that could be insisted upon by daylight- a good shogun saw to that"
        • Even Lachlan and the children who are trying to help Gemmy feel an ownership over him, as a posession
          • British ideals reinforced at a young age
      • Gemmy initially sees himself as less, subdues to the British
    • Fear of the unknown
      • "The very patch of Earth you were standing on had itself been on the other side of things"
      • Andy and his superstition towards the Aboriginal people
      • "It was disturbing, that: to have unknown country behind you as well as in front
    • The fabricated divide which exists between the two cultures
      • Symbolism of light/dark
        • "dripping sunlight, they made gestures this way and that, but awkwardly, weighed down by the shadows of their folds"
      • Gemmy was so disturbing because "he could show one face or the other"
      • Fabricated by the British, because the Aborigines learned to accept Gemmy
        • Lachlan taught to refer to Aborigines as 'blakcs', objectification taught at a young age
          • "A black! That was the boy's first thought. We've been raided by blacks.' (pg 2)
      • Gemmy has to breach the gap, the symbolic fence
        • Animal imagery often used to represent his savage background
      • Seen as fabricated because of the enormous impact Gemmy leaves on their culture
      • British people not allowing for a multiracial society
    • Differences in cultures and teachings can never destroy human nature
      • "squalid and flea-ridden that it inspirednothing but a kind of horror at what human nature might in its beginnings spring from"
      • Both cultures tried to exile the newcomers
      • Gemmy also scared that some of his culture will change
        • The papers that he steals back resemble his soul, scared they are gong to change im
    • Gender inequality
      • Janet in comparison to Lachlan
        • "the narrowness of it was terrible to her"
        • Lachlan doesn't have to "fret or bother himself", he simply has to "fill out the lines of what had been laid out for him"
        • Even Gemmy is sexist, teaching the girls to hunt for roots and Lachlan to track animals
      • Ellen defying stereotypes as she didn't fulfil her family's tradition of marrying a miner
    • Relationship with nature
      • British want dominion and control
        • "hidden away in the depths of the land"
      • Aborigines at one with the land, part of nature itself
        • Janet begins to realise their beliefs when she is at peace with the bees
    • The idea of British superiority an illusion
      • Intruders came from the sea; both Gemmy and the settlers
        • "changed before their eyes from a sea-creature into a skinny human child"
      • Janet excited about seeing Lachlan, from Scotland, but is disappointed
        • When he came, she resented his "easy assumption that he was superior", the basis of the colonisers attitudes
      • Basedon lies, as both George Abbot and Andy lie
        • Andy's stone symbolic of the truth
      • Resent Gemmy, because  a white boy acting as a 'savage' means their ideas of white supremacy are wrong
      • People simply objects, expected to fulfil expectations
        • "Do not shoot,' it shoutd. 'I am a B-b-british object! (pg 3)
    • Religious connotations
      • Babylon symbolic for the controlling British in the Book of Revelation
        • The Bible teaches that Babylon is evil because they are proud of their supremacy
          • Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who has made all the nations drink of the wine of the passion of her immorality."
      • Gemmy almost seen as the Messiah for those who follow him
        • Leads to Janet's spiritual awakening and her time in the convent
        • Gemmy's influence gave Janet the ability to perceive her pain as part of the natural process
    • The same experiences can have very different results due to human disposition
      • Mr Frazer reacts by going to the Governor-General to implement Gemmy's teachings
      • Third person perspective to show Gemmy's impact on differing people
    • Characterisation of Gemmy
      • Often compared to as an animal, not human
      • "Do not shoot,' it shoutd. 'I am a B-b-british object! (pg 3)
    • Selflessness and experience allows for societal teachings to be exposed
      • All of the McIvor family defies stereotypes
      • Janet's pain is experience and Gemmy allows her to percieve pain as a natural process
      • Jock's developmental character as he is exposed to the hypocricy of society's beliefs

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