Examine how the stylistic elements of a text create particular effects
Explain how sensory imagery and symbols are used to create representations in a text
“Everyone has a sense of the value of history, but I’ve been looking at the price of history” - Samuel Wagan Watson. Examine the significance of ‘the price of history’ as a concept in a text.
Note: "a text" can be more than one poem, i.e. a collection.
Through the stylistic use of atmosphere and voice through his works, Samuel Wagan Watson’s “brown water looting” crafts the powerful effect of insight into the emotional turmoil caused as a result of colonialist values embedded in modern Australian society.
Samuel Wagan Watson’s renowned poem “white stucco dreaming” creates representations of the Indigenous population who have betrayed their culture and heritage in their conformity to Western society through its use of strong and evocative sensory imagery and symbols that immerse the reader into Wagan Watson’s perspective.
In “the night house”, Samuel Wagan Watson explores the concept of the ‘price of history’ through its portrayal of the bloody and devastating events of Australia’s colonial history, contemplating on the costs of the Stolen Generation on Indigenous Australian communities.
The notion of ‘the price of history’ is arguably central to this text, as it unambiguously links massacre and ongoing cultural erosion to the process of colonisation, thus interrogating its costs and impacts.
Works of literature give authors a platform to produce their own perspective on prevalent social issues. Samuel Wagan Watson’s renowned poems “white stucco dreaming”and “brown water looting” creates representations of the Indigenous population who have lost parts of their culture and heritage in their conformity to Western society through its use of strong and evocative sensory imagery and symbols that immerse the reader into Wagan Watson’s perspective. Through the persona of “white stucco dreaming”, Wagan Watson intends for readers to visualise the lost identity experienced when the persona’s Indigenous Australian family resides in Westernised suburbia. Wagan Watson reinforces the idea of lost culture in “brown water looting”, as he explores the lost children who never find their original Aboriginal Australian identity. By focusing on the portrayal of Indigenous Australians in both poems, my interpretation is that Wagan Watson creates a representation of Aboriginal Australians as oppressed, whether it be silently through their assimilation into European culture, or violently through events such as the Stolen Generation.
answer the question for the point sentences => talk about representation
Wagan Watson’s “white stucco dreaming” represents the disenfranchised Indigenous Australians living in a Western-dominated Australian society through the perspective of the persona. The persona informs the reader that “early childhood and black humour” is “sprinkled in the happy dark of my mind”. Through the authentic, childish tone of which the persona’s line is delivered, Wagan Watson engages the reader with the portrayal of a emotionally wounded character, crafting the symbol of one’s mind as an insight into one’s internal emotions and struggles. Thus, I interpret the poem as reflecting on the hurt mental state of Indigenous Australians, who have had to struggle against the intangible loss of their assimilation into Australian society. The persona further describes a memory of their youth, recounting the “chocolate hand prints like dreamtime fraud”. Despite the collected and uncharged tone of the persona, the sinister and evocative noun of “fraud” draws the reader’s attention, further layering the visual imagery of the hand prints with a sense of disillusionment and betrayal. I interpret the phrase “dreamtime fraud” as suggesting that the playful, child-like hand prints the persona placed on walls in their youth is a deceiving of their Indigenous identity, which is grounded in the concept of the Dreamtime. Wagan Watson represents the persona as unwittingly backstabbing and hence losing their connection with their Aboriginal Australian heritage, through their conformity into a Westernised lifestyle. Hence, through the use of imagery and symbolism, Wagan Watson is able to represent the tragedy of Indigenous Australians having to live in an oppressive society birthed from the devastation of colonialism.
Well substantiated ideas and links to context. Good structure and analysis of evidence, as well as range of metalanguage
Representations. Literally re – presentation. So taking something that exists in reality then presenting it in a particular light .: Indigenous Australians are represented AS ….
Link to imagery in second quote. Consider the impact of imagery specifically… it creates an sense of artificiality as the vision of chocolate handprints is juxtaposed against our preconceptions of Indigenous rock art or Dreaming.
