Thomas Blackwood, can be seen as a representation of the original choice of a peaceful and harmonic co-existence that the British colonists could have had with Aboriginal people if they had not been blinded by racism, false ideals, and greed. Blackwood’s peaceful nature can be seen when he states, “Ain't nothing in this world just for the taking ... A man got to pay a fair price for taking. Matter of give a little, take a little" (Grenville 104). The Secret River is a postcolonial historical novel written by author Kate Grenville. Published in 2005, The Secret River took Grenville “5 years of intense research and 20 drafts” (The Secret River - ONE Hundred Exhibition) before its completion and publication. The first of a three-book series The
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Throughout The Secret River Kate Grenville explores and analyses the damaging, and destructive clash that occurred between the settler and the Aborigines’ during the colonisation of Australia. Throughout her book, Grenville does not try to cover the brutality that occurred during the colonisation of Australia, but instead tells the captivating truth about the initial encounters between the Aborigines and the English settlers, and the violent dispersal of the Natives that followed. As described in the journal article Going Against the Flow: Kate Grenville’s The Secret River and Colonialism’s Structuring Oppositions written by Anouk Lang she states, “many critics in postcolonial studies and critical race studies have observed, binaries such as savage/civilised, physical/rational, and animal/human” (Lang 4) within The Secret River. Furthermore, Grenville’s book is full of other binaries or key postcolonial concepts such as, the savage versus the civilised, cultural and the diversity/difference between English settlers and the Native Aboriginal’s way of …show more content…
Grenville dedicates The Secret River to the native Aboriginal’s of Australia and as quoted by her in Searching for The Secret River "they recognise that the book is my act of acknowledgement, my way of saying: this is how I'm sorry" (Grenville). Grenville shows the brutal treatment the Aborigines were subjected to through the ideals and the desire for racial domination the European settlers. The change in William Thornville’s character shows how even those that despised the treatment of the poor and helpless in England and wanted to be better than that, turned into what they hated the most. They were weakened and blinded by greed. Though through all the darkness and hatred that surrounded the colonisation of Australia, through the character of Dick Grenville shows there is the choice of redemption as long as the younger and upcoming generations chose to be different to those before them. “This place had been here long before him. It would go on sighing and breathing and being itself after he had gone” (Grenville
Throughout The Secret River Kate Grenville explores and analyses the damaging, and destructive clash that occurred between the settler and the Aborigines’ during the colonisation of Australia. Throughout her book, Grenville does not try to cover the brutality that occurred during the colonisation of Australia, but instead tells the captivating truth about the initial encounters between the Aborigines and the English settlers, and the violent dispersal of the Natives that followed. As described in the journal article Going Against the Flow: Kate Grenville’s The Secret River and Colonialism’s Structuring Oppositions written by Anouk Lang she states, “many critics in postcolonial studies and critical race studies have observed, binaries such as savage/civilised, physical/rational, and animal/human” (Lang 4) within The Secret River. Furthermore, Grenville’s book is full of other binaries or key postcolonial concepts such as, the savage versus the civilised, cultural and the diversity/difference between English settlers and the Native Aboriginal’s way of …show more content…
Grenville dedicates The Secret River to the native Aboriginal’s of Australia and as quoted by her in Searching for The Secret River "they recognise that the book is my act of acknowledgement, my way of saying: this is how I'm sorry" (Grenville). Grenville shows the brutal treatment the Aborigines were subjected to through the ideals and the desire for racial domination the European settlers. The change in William Thornville’s character shows how even those that despised the treatment of the poor and helpless in England and wanted to be better than that, turned into what they hated the most. They were weakened and blinded by greed. Though through all the darkness and hatred that surrounded the colonisation of Australia, through the character of Dick Grenville shows there is the choice of redemption as long as the younger and upcoming generations chose to be different to those before them. “This place had been here long before him. It would go on sighing and breathing and being itself after he had gone” (Grenville