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ASSIGNMENT SOLUTIONS GUIDE (2014-2015)

M.E.G.-9
Australian Literature
Disclaimer/Special Note: These are just the sample of the Answers/Solutions to some of the Questions given in the
Assignments. These Sample Answers/Solutions are prepared by Private Teacher/Tutors/Auhtors for the help and Guidance
of the student to get an idea of how he/she can answer the Questions of the Assignments. We do not claim 100% Accuracy
of these sample Answers as these are based on the knowledge and cabability of Private Teacher/Tutor. Sample answers
may be seen as the Guide/Help Book for the reference to prepare the answers of the Question given in the assignment. As
these solutions and answers are prepared by the private teacher/tutor so the chances of error or mistake cannot be denied.
Any Omission or Error is highly regretted though every care has been taken while preparing these Sample Answers/
Solutions. Please consult your own Teacher/Tutor before you prepare a Particular Answer & for uptodate and exact
information, data and solution. Student should must read and refer the official study material provided by the university.
Q. 1. Pick up any writer from your course and discuss his/her work from the perspective of post-colonial
theory.
Ans. Delys Bird is a Western Australian writer, academic and editor. She has been the editor of literary magazine Westerly
since the early 1990s. Bird was born in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. After living in Sydney for a period, Bird's tertiary education
began as a mature age student at the University of Western Australia in the 1970s. She began teaching at the university in 1980
and joined the faculty of Arts in 1985, where she was a member of the English department as well as director of the Centre for
Women's studies until her retirement in 2003.
Bird has been editor of Western Australian literary magazine Westerly since the early 1990s. She had previously served as
the magazine's poetry editor. Bird has also conducted extensive research in Australian literature, with a focus on women writers
and feminist theory.
Postcolonialism and globalization have been two of the thorniest terms to pin down in every field of study where they have
appeared, be it economic, social, cultural, or literary; it comes as no surprise then that the inevitable question over the nature of
their relationship is still much debated. Confusion occurs when terms like hybridity, creolization, and diaspora are associated
with the phenomenon of globalization via the undue equation with imperialism and postcolonialism. Many critics follow Stuart
Hall in dating globalization "from the moment when Western Europe breaks out of its confinement, at the end of the 15th century,
and the era of exploration and conquest of the non-European world begins" (Enwezor et al. 193); if seen from this perspective
then it is just one step further to define creolization as "the product of the first phase of globalization" (Ibid.). But adopting such
a broad span of time to define globalization is just as vague as characterizing postcoloniality as the condition of all the nations
once affected by colonialism at some point in history; such a definition was one of the first given when postcolonial studies took
ground but was soon modified and perfected because it made any place on earth potentially a postcolonial country, and such
looseness was problematic for a thorough understanding of the issues at stake. Similarly, dating the beginning of globalization
"[s]omewhere around 1492" (Ibid.) dilutes the phenomenon and minimizes its explosive consequences. Despite the fact that the
interest in postcolonialism was born in the context of literary and cultural studies and that globalization developed instead in the
field of sociology and economics, their interdisciplinary character has made them meet and struggle on different levels.
Q. 2. Which writers work do you like best/least? State your reasons with appropriate and sufficient examples.
Ans. Henry Lawson was born on the Grenfell goldfields in New South Wales on 17 June 1867. He was the son of a
Norwegian seaman, Niels Larsen, who later changed his name to Peter Lawson.
In Henry's early years, the family lived on a poor selection in the Mudgee district. Lawson suffered from deafness and
was often teased as a result.
His parents separated in 1883, and Henry moved to Sydney with his mother, Louisa. It was there that Louisa began
publishing the feminist newspaper The Dawn.
Colin Roderick , who published a biography of Lawson called Henry Lawson: a life , suggests that Lawson suffered
from manic depression and sought refuge from his mood swings in alcohol.
Henry married Bertha Bredt in 1896, and they had two children, but it was not a happy relationship and they separated
in 1903. Henry spent periods of time in institutions for his alcoholism, and periods of time in gaol for failing to support his

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family. He died on 2 September, 1922, in Sydney. At his funeral, crowds lined the streets to farewell Australia's 'poet of
the people'.
Much of Lawson's work was set in the Australian bush, or was about bush life.
Although most Australians lived in cities and towns in the 19th century, it was the bush that somehow grabbed the
imagination - perhaps because of the stark contrast between it and the more gentle and controlled environment of Europe,
from where most non-indigenous Australians had come.
This was also the time before Federation, and Australians' allegiance was not to Australia, because it did not exist as
an united entity as yet. Australians felt they owed loyalty to a particular colony - New South Wales or Victoria and so on
- and beyond that, loyalty was owed to England, the King or Queen of England, and the British Empire.
By the 1890s Australia had been settled for a little more than 100 years and Lawson was arguably the first Australianborn writer who really looked at Australia with Australian eyes, not influenced by his knowledge of other landscapes. He
was the first perhaps to give voice to interpretations of an 'Australian' character.
He was also from the bush, had lived on a selection, had been brought up in bush poverty, had suffered hardship and
unemployment, and knew of the characters and lifestyles he talked about. His work reflected Australian experience with
an integrity readers recognised.
Q. 3. How and why has the common perception of Australia as Terra nullius changed? Discuss.
Ans. Terra Nullius means land belonging to no one. This means that Captain James Cook, the founder of Australia,
believed that the land was free for whoever got there first to take it. He was too much impressed with Australian land.
After returning to England, he told King George III that the soil was good for crops. He said that there were lots of birds
and animals to hunt for food and that water were filled with fish. King was pleased with this news and began to plan to
move English people to this country to secure it for him.
When Captain Cook and his crew were in Australia they meet Aboriginal people who were considered the first
inhabitants of Australia. Cook decided the way the Aboriginal people lived it was not their land. The Aboriginal people
did not show their ownership with fences or markers, like people in Europe. So, he decided that the British could colonize.
This decision led to Australia's Indigenous people losing all their rights to the land.
European settlement of Australia commenced in 1788. Prior to this, indigenous Australians inhabited the continent
and had unwritten, as documented in the case of the Yirrkala community.
However, the indigenous Australians did not have any form of political organization that Europeans could understand
as being analogous to their own institutions, and the British could not find recognized leaders with the authority to sign
treaties, so treaties were not signed (in contrast to British colonial practices in many areas of North America, Africa, New
Zealand, etc.).
The first test of terra nullius in Australia occurred with the decision of R v Tommy (Monitor, 29 November 1827),
which indicated that the native inhabitants were only subject to English law where the incident concerned both natives
and settlers. The rationale was that Aboriginal tribal groups already operated under their own legal systems. This position
was further reinforced by the decisions of R v Boatman or Jackass and Bulleyes (Sydney Gazette, 25 February 1832) and
R v Ballard (Sydney Gazette, 23 April 1829).
Prompted by Batmans Treaty (June 1835) with Wurundjeri elders of the area around the future Melbourne, in August
1835 Governor Bourke of New South Wales implemented the doctrine of terra nullius by proclaiming that indigenous
Australians could not sell or assign land, nor could an individual person or group acquire it, other than through distribution
by the Crown.
The first decision of the New South Wales Supreme Court to make explicit use of the term terra nullius was R v
Murrell and Bummaree (unreported, New South Wales Supreme Court, 11 April 1836, Burton J). Terra nullius was not
endorsed by the Judicial until the decision of Cooper v Stuart in 1889, some fifty-three years later.
However, historian Michael Connor has claimed that the concept of terra nullius was a straw man developed in the
late twentieth century:
By the time of Mabo in 1992, terra nullius was the only explanation for the British settlement of Australia. Historians,
more interested in politics than archives, misled the legal profession into believing that a phrase no one had heard of a few
years before was the very basis of our statehood, and Reynolds version of our history, especially The Law of the Land,
underpinned the Mabo judges' decision-making.
There is some controversy as to the meaning of the term. For example, it is asserted that, rather than implying mere
emptiness, terra nullius can be interpreted as an absence of civilized society. The English common law of the time allowed
for the legal settlement of uninhabited or barbarous country.

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In 1971, in the controversial Gove land rights case, Justice Richard Blackburn ruled that Australia had been considered
"desert and uncultivated" (a term which included territory in which resided "uncivilized inhabitants in a primitive state of
society") before European settlement, and therefore, by the law that applied at the time, open to be claimed by right of
occupancy, and that there was no such thing as native title in Australian law. The concept of terra nullius was not considered
in this case, however. Court cases in 1977, 1979, and 1982 brought by or on behalf of Aboriginal activists challenged
Australian sovereignty on the grounds that terra nullius had been improperly applied, therefore Aboriginal sovereignty
should still be regarded as being intact. The courts rejected these cases, but the Australian High Court left the door open
for a reassessment of whether the continent should be considered settled or conquered.
The concept of terra nullius became a major issue in Australian politics when in 1992, during an Aboriginal rights
case known as Mabo, the High Court of Australia issued a judgment which directly overturned terra nullius. In this case,
the Court found that there was a concept of native title in common law, that the source of native title was the traditional
connection to or occupation of the land, that the nature and content of native title was determined by the character of the
connection or occupation under traditional laws or customs and that native title could be extinguished by the valid
exercise of governmental powers provided a clear and plain intention to do so was manifest.
In 1996, the High Court re-visited the subject of native title in Wik. The 4-3 majority in the Wik Decision stated that
native title and pastoral leases could co-exist over the same area and that native peoples could use land for hunting and
performing sacred ceremonies even without exercising rights of ownership. However, in the event of any conflict between
the rights and interests of pastoralists and native title, the former would prevail.
The court's ruling in Mabo has enabled some Aboriginal peoples to reclaim limited territory appropriated under the
doctrine ofterra nullius. This has proven extremely controversial, as it has led to lawsuits seeking the transfer or restoration
of land-ownership rights to native groups. An estimated 3,000 further agreements have been reached in which Aboriginal
peoples have regained former lands. Note for example a December 2004 case which recognized the Noonkanbah people
as the traditional owners of a 1,811 km2 (699 sq mi) plot of land in Western Australia . In the North Territory, Aboriginal
peoples as of 2014 own 40 per cent of the land and most of the coastline
Q. 4. Elaborate upon the Australianess of Australian literature with suitable examples.
Ans. Ian Turner quotes Nettie Palmer, regarding the Australian nation being different from Britain through literature
Australia was no longer a group of more or less important colonies hanging loosely together...on the ample bosom of
Britannia; Australia was henceforth Australia. What that name was to mean it lay in the hands of her writers, above all, to
discover.
Ian Turner also quotes T.G. Tucker: If we ever have an Australian school of literature, it will not be because of
the fauna and flora and geography and idioms of Australia which may be introduced. These make nothing in art.... It will
be because our Australian atmosphere, our national life, occupations, religious ideas, have inevitably and unconsciously
created in our eyes and hearts and intellects some difference in our way of regarding things, so that we perceive strength
and beauty and pathos in some new light, and adapt our representation thereto.
(i) Australian literature is not a fixed set of books or ideas;
(ii) It is a constantly changing body of writing.
It is because of Australias diverse aspects such as: (i) social, (ii) cultural, (iii) political
In Australia, there was an attempt at creating of a national identity by questioning the literary study programmes.
According to Dale Leigh, (New Directions: Introduction; Australian Literary Studies, the study of Australian
literature as an academic subject began in 1920, and in 1930, British texts, etc. were included for lectures and postgraduate
research.
It was Adelaide who in 1940, claimed the first full-fledged courseAustralian Literature.
By 1970 and 1980, a chain of Australian literature had been created in Sydney.
Now, efforts were being made to drift the Australian literature away from the British colonial influence.
Now, new literary fields began to be studied apart from traditional English literature in India and elsewhere, as
(i) postcolonial literature
(ii) feminist literature
(iii) Indian writing
(iv) American literature
(v) Now, Australian literature is also being studied in India.
The Growth of Self-identity
1. In Oscar Wildes The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), we have the following reference regarding Australia:

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Cecily: I don't think you will require neckties. Uncle lack is sending you to Australia.
Agernon: Australia? I'd sooner die.
2. (i) In the earlier phase of the Australian novel, we have a sense of divided loyalty.
(ii) The Australian writers tried to copy British models.
(iii) They also tried to get rid of it and have self identity.
3. Thus, the Australian writers wavered between:
(i) Australianism and
(ii) Europeanism.
4. Judith Wright, the famous Australian poet talks of:
(i) The Fallacy of Engagement and
(ii) The Fallacy of Disengagement.
5. (i) The former refers to the early phase of colonial settlement.
(ii) Then the writers worked in small European settlements which were strife-torn.
(iii) The writers had not yet acknowledged Australia in totality.
6. In the latter phase, the writers (i) recognised the distance between:
(a) Australia and
(b) Europe
(ii) This is a phase of silence in:
(a) history and
(b) space
(iii) This phase expresses a crisis of self image.
7. Now, the writers who had left Australia, started coming back
(i) Katherine Susannah Prichard.
(ii) Jean Devany in 1929.
(iii) Patrick White in 1948.
(iv) CLristina Stead in 1974.
8. Some writers still thought of a home away from home:
(i) The Carboard Crown-1952 by Martin Boyd
(ii) The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney-l Q by Henry Children-1940.
10. In Prichard VWinged Seeds (1950) a graphic picture of Australian participations War II.
11. We have mentions of war in:
(i) Patrick Whites The Tree of Man
(ii) Franklins Cockatoos
(iii) Eric Lamberts The Twenty Thieves-1951, etc.
(iv) Eleanor Darks The Little Coi 1945.
(v) Dymphna Cusack and Florence Come in Spinner-1951.
(vi) Xavier Herberts Soldiers Women-12. Meanwhile, the Communist Party of, had come into being.
13. Some of the writers who became its or were influenced by this happening were.
(i) Jean Devany
(ii) Katherine Susannah Prichard
(iii) JudahWaten
(iv) John Mansfield
(v) Eric Lambert
(vi) Frank Hardy
(vii) Dorothy Hewett, etc.
14. Jean Devany's "Sugar Heaven" -1 claimed by the writer "the first Proletarian n Australia".
15. Prichard's 'Working Bullocks' already appeared in 1926.
16. The members of the CPAbeli "socialist realism".
17. Some of the Novels based on realism were:
(i) Dark's 'The Timeless Land'-V.
(ii) E.V.Timmss:
(a) The Pathway of the Sun-1945

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(b) The Beaconing Shore-1950

(c) The Valleys Beyond-1951
(iii) Nancy Catos:
(a) All the Rivers Run-1948
(b) Time, Flow Swiftly-1952
(c) But Still the Stream-1962
(iv) Patrick Whites Voss-195
18. Patrick first handled metaphysical
*. Later, Patrick moved towards pit
*r reality of Australian society as in 0) The Solid Mandala-1966 Ii) The Vivisector-1970
(iii) The Eye of the Storm-1973
(iv) A Fringe of Leaves-1977
20. White became the path maker for his great orary writers such as:
(i) Elizabeth Jolly
(ii) Thomas Kenneally
(iii) David Malouf, etc.
21. Now Australian fiction became particularly ilian.
22. Voss is said to be the most florid of Whites and perhaps the most triumphant because of deal excess.
23. It set a fashion for heavily symbolic and ridden writing, and localized the journey of ration as spiritual metaphor
says the Oxford of Australian Literature.
Phases of Development: Different phases in the ent of the Australian novel in 20th century are:
1. Romance Fiction:
(i) The early novel is characterized by the notion of The Coming Race.
(ii) Among such novels we have:
(a) Such is Life-1093 by Furphy
(b) Fugitive Anne-1902 by H Rider Haggard
2. Melodramatic Fiction:
(i) In these novels we have contrasts between:
(a) the landed and the lawless
(b) the gaolers and the convicts
(c) the settlers and the Aborigines, etc.
(ii) Examples:
(a) Steads The Man Who Loved Children-1940.
(b) Xavier Herberts Capricornia-1938
3. Neo-Melodramatic Fiction:
(i) It is a renewal of melo-dramatic fiction
(ii) it is characterized in recent times by:
(a) Thomas Keneally
(b) Kate Grenville, etc.
(ii) It is largely prompted by:
(a) a sense of loss of identity
(b) the hegemony of European powers
4. Historical Fiction:
(i) Such fiction historicises the themes such as.
(a) settlement and
(b) exploration.
(ii) Some of such works are:
(a) Martin Boys The Cardboard Crown-1952
(b) Robert Drewes The Savage Cows-1976
(c) Whites Voss-1957
(d) A Fringe of Leaves-1976 by White
(e) Narogin (Colin Johnsons) ong Live Sandawara-1979

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(ii) In many of such novels we have themes such as:

(a) decline of lumpen-bourgeoise
(b) theme of exploration etc.
(c) oppression of the Aborigines
(d) their gradual extinction, etc.
5. Realistic Fiction: Examples:
(i) Jonah by Louis Stone
(ii) The Refuge by Kenneth Mackenzie
(iii) Milk and Honey-l 984 by Elizabeth Jolly (This novel contains traces of psychological realism)
6. Aboriginal fiction: Examples:
(i) Narogins
(a) Long Live Sandawara-1979
(b) Doctor Wooreddys Prescription for Enduring the Ending of the World-l 983
(ii) Monica Clares Karo Bran-1979
(iii) Jack Davis calls these Aboriginal novels the real Australian story.
The Flora and Fauna of Australia
1. The redeeming feature of Australian poetry is that despite its copy of British models, it contains description of
Australian flora and fauna.
2. Here is an extract from Wentworths Australasia:
Here lowing kine, these bounding courses graze,
Here waves the corn, and there the woody maize;
Here the tall peach puts forth its pinky bloom
And there the orange scatters its perfume ........ (Wilkes: 5)
3. Barron field calls Kangroo as The Spirit of Australia
(ii)He
4. (i) Harpur had vowed to be the bard of the country.
(ii) There is a vivid description of Australian landscape in his poetry.
Example:
Not a bird disturbs the air,
There is quiet everywhere:
Over plains and our woods
what a mighty stillness broods. (Wilkes:15)
5. There is full description of natural landscape in his long poem The Creek of Four Graves.
6. G.B. Barton thus wrote in 1866 about Kendalls poetry:
One striking merit of Mr. Kendalls poetry is, that its colouring is strictly local, and that he has endeavoured to give
voice to the majestic scenery of his native land. (Barness: 5)
7. (i) In Kendalls poetry there is recreation of Australian flora and fauna
(ii) in his lyrics and ballads there is infusion of a melancholy strain in description of landscape of Australia.
8. There is a vivid description of eucalyptus plant in Gordoins Dedication poem in Bush Ballads and Galloping
Rhymes:
When the gnarld knotted trunks Eucalyptian
Seemd carved like weird columns Egyptian
With curious device, quaint inscription
And hieroglyph strange.(Wilkes: 62)
9.(i) There is vivid description of horses and horsemen in his ballad The Sick Stockrider.
(ii) There is also a description of Australian flowers:
Let me slumber in the hollow where the wattle blossoms wave,
With never stone or rail to fence my bed;
Should the sturdy station children pull the bush flowers on my grave,
I may chance to hear them romping over head.
(Wilkes: 86)
Australian Identity
1. At the initial stage in Australia there were:

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(i) homesickness
(ii) surprise
(iii) disgust with:
(a) strange and uncouth landscape and
(b) seasonal variations of the antipodes
(iv) a sense of:
(a) alienation and
(b) displacement
2. Later, there was a sense of attachment to the land.
3. Commonwealth of Australia was formed in 1901.
4. In the 19th century various poets depicted the special features of Australian identity such as:
(i) flora and fauna
(ii) the bushlife
(iii) mateship
(iv) horsemanship, etc.
Q. 5. Discuss multiculturalism in Australia as reflected by its literature. Illustrate from the work of the writers
is your course.
Ans. Multiculturalism is a harmonious metaphor for fashioning the concept of nation. In its emphasis on equally of
respect, the equivalence of cultures, and the benefits of cultural diversity, it can be made to signal a distinct break
with the classically racist policies of the period in Australian history to the end of World War II, and the assimilationist
project of the post war period. Both of those ethnic management strategies had embedded Anglo versions and visions of
Australia as captured by the slogan of white Australia.
Multiculturalism has been government policy in Australia since the early 1970s, when it was recognized that the
earlier expectation that migrants from non-English speaking backgrounds quickly assimilate into the mainstream culture
was both unrealistic and undesirable. Exactly what multiculturalism means, and what its implications are, or should be,
for the national culture have been subjects of lively, sometimes heated debate ever since. The nature of multicultural
writing and its relationship to the overall category of Australian literature have become important issues in this debate.
'Multicultural writing' is only one of a number of different terms used to designate writing by Australians from
backgrounds other than the English and Irish mainstream; others include migrant writing, non-Anglo-Celtic writing,
ethnic writing, NESB (Non English Speaking Background) writing, ethnic minority writing. All of these terms have, for
various reasons, proved problematic: 'migrant' does not accurately cover the experience and work of second- generation
writers; 'ethnic' and 'multicultural' have been taken to suggest that only ethnic minorities can lay claim to ethnicity and
multiculturalism (the mainstream being somehow ethnically and culturally neutral). One objection, sometimes voiced by
the very writers for whom these terms were coined, is that they have the potential to 'pigeon- hole' them, confine them to
'ethnic ghettos' and thus impose arbitrary limits on their writing and its audience appeal.
On the other hand, the fact that these categories (especially 'multicultural writing') have survived seems a clear
indication that the reasons why they were invented in the first place have not gone away: writers from non-Anglo
backgrounds are still under-represented in, and often considered to stand outside of, the national literary tradition, and a
considerable number of people ('ordinary' readers as well as students and researchers) take a special interest in writing
informed by a diverse cultural experience and find these labels useful, in spite of their limitations. It should be noted,
however, that most Aboriginal writers prefer not to be included in the category of 'multicultural writing', which, they
argue, still carries the 'immigrant' connotation and thus does not recognise their special status as the indigenous culture,
and original inhabitants, of the land.
Research aimed at making 'visible' writers of ethnic minority backgrounds and their contribution to Australia's literature
started in the late 1970s and gained momentum in the 1980s. Identifying these writers was not always easy in the early
days. '[I]t was a case', Sneja Gunew writes, 'of having to sift through old journals and anthologies in order simply to come
up with the names of writers and examples of their work.' (1994:6) The names themselves were not always reliable
indicators of ethnic origin: some writers had anglicised their names and others had changed their names through marriage.
The research was further complicated by the fact that many of these writers published in journals, periodicals and anthologies
unknown to the mainstream literary institutions, often in languages other than English. Many published most of their
work outside Australia.
1. According to Henry Reynolds, the early settlers believed in alienation of the Aborigines.

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2. (i) Then arrived in 1830, some humanitarian officials and members of the church.
(ii) They wanted to protect the lives and culture of the Aborigines.
3. Aborigines were:
(i) converted to Christianity and
(ii) British nation of civilization.
4. (i) This actually led to decrease in the numbers of the Aborigines.
(ii) At certain places, the Aborigines also resisted this humanitarian effort. So, they could not be helped.
5. Stephen Gartons comments on liberal paternalism are as under:
In this framework the Aborigines were the students or the children while white reformers were the guardians or
fathers who would educate the Aborigines and facilitate their assimilation into wider society. ... While the assimilationist
position was humanitarian, it denied Aborigines self-determination.
6.(i) During 1950s and 1960, the height of assimilation process was reached and this resulted in the Stolen
Generation of Aboriginal children.
(ii) Their stories appeared in
(a) autobiographies
(b) research efforts and
(c) reports of organisations such as
Human Rights Commission
Equal Opportunities Commission
White Australia
1.Two important factors which took place in 1820 were
(i) expansion of settlements
(ii) growth of wool industry.
2. (i) The demand for jobs increased.
(ii) A large work force migrated to Australia.
(iii) The new migration policy was inclined to favour the British subjects.
(iv) According to David Malouf:
The idea grew up that if we could only keep ourselves pure in a contaminated worldmorally pure but racially pure,
too it would one day be our privilege as a nation, to carry forward into history the British ideal. (78)
3. After the discovery of gold, Europeans and Americans were allowed
(i) to migrate to Australia.
(ii) to look for gold in Australia.
(iii) to set up business and
(iv) even to settle there.
4.(i) The result of this policy was that just in ten years the population of Australia doubled.
(ii) An overwhelming majority in Australia was the white.
5. (i) The great economic depression took place in 1890.
(ii) The migration of white labour to Australia almost stopped.
(iii) Then the non-European non-White cheap labour force was allowed in Australia to work in:
(a) sheep farm island
(b) sugar plantation of Queensland
(c) in building industry.
(iv) Now whites were, however, not allowed to settle in Australia.
6. The white working class resented this.
(i) they feared that wages would be lowered.
(ii) standard of living would fall.
7. Paucity of jobs during depression years, brought about much verses as under:
The Lord above, send down a dove,
With wings as sharp as razors
To slit the throats of bloody scabs
Who cut down poor mans wages
(Ward and Robertson, 72)
8. The same theme is explained by Lowenstein in The Immigrants.

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This fear of strangers, this dislike of people who are not white and Anglo-Saxon, is an important strand of our
history, and economic factors were not its only cause. Our isolation in the Pacific, a huge land with a tiny white population
surrounded by people of totally alien culture and way of life, has helped to make us paranoid. We have felt surrounded,
convinced that the hungry people of Asia have their eyes on our empty deserts. Cheap labour therefore was a threat to
living standards and coloured cheap labour affronted the ideal of a free homogenous white Australia. (5)
9. Fear was the main reason in Australia for
(i) recisim and
(ii) discrimination against non-whites.
10. The writers of this period were permeated with the perception that Australia:
(i) helps to and
(ii) was built by white Anglo-Saxon British people.
11. Bennett and Strauss sum up the major events in Australian history as:
(i) European settlement
(ii) the traumatic consequences of black Australians
(iii) the discovery of gold
(iv) large-scale immigration to Australia.
(a) white as well as
(b) non-white.
(v) Australias involvement in
(a) two world wars and
(b) Vietnam war.
12. As they point out,
Each of them had immediate and long term influences on Australias thinking and writing about themselves, and at
each of these points Australians asked themselves difficult questions about hope and despair, power and marginality, love
and death.
13.After the world wars the main thrust of immigration was from:
(i) Asia and
(ii) South Eastern Europe.
14.(i) This contributed to half of the growth of population.
(ii) This immigration was considered necessary for nation building.
15.(i) The first set of policy favoured assimilation into mainstream both of
(a) the Aborigines and
(b) new immigrants.
(ii) Later, multiculturalism was adopted as a policy.
Cultural fissures Internal and External
Breaking Free of British Moulds
1. According to Goodwin: Land and language have been the two major rival determinants of written literature in
Australia ... A sense of exile may, through the perspective of distance, sharpen appreciation and assessment of the homeland,
but it can also be an inhibiting factor in coming to terms with the new circumstances.
The contrast between gloom and hope runs roughly parallel to the contrast between colonialism and nationalism in
the first century or so of settlement. Language, with its often unrecognized cultural biases, tended to pull the settlers back
towards British values. The land, with its many phenomena unnameable in the English language, tended to pull them
towards a sense of national uniqueness. (Goodwin. I)
2. (i) It was in 1788 that the British Penal colony was set up in Australia.
(ii) The British white settlers brought to the Antipodes
(a) the English language
(b) the printing technology and
(c) assumed ideas about
culture and
literature.
3.Their ideas, etc. were , however, modified in course of time by:
(i) internal conflicts among them and

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(ii) interaction with.

(a) Aboriginal culture
(b) non-English speaking immigrants culture and
(c) other white settler cultures.
4.The early white settlers tried to recreate the British culture in Australia.
5.Even literary and artistic efforts were directed towards this side.
6.Turner points out: Underlying the seeming stability of the early areas of settlement, there was the loneliness of
exile, and buried still deeper, fear of the Australian unknowndark uncertainties which they sought to dispel by ... recreating
familiar social patterns and forcing the environment into familiar images and moulds. (Turner 20)
7. Later, what came into existence were models:
(i) at once new or
(ii) modified British models
8. All means were blanded to bring about the uniqueness and difference that persisted, such as:
(i) language
(ii) literary forms and
(iii) other cultural products.
9. Negative things haunting the minds of settlers were:
(i) fear
(ii) uncertainty and
(iii) feeling of loneliness of exile
10. In the frontier outback cultural values brave important because of the needs of survival and not as a result of
British inheritance.
11. The travelling life in the Bush recessitated:
(i) courage
(ii) lack of social pretension
(iii) competence and
(iii) hospitality.
7. The Bush became a national cultural legend for the white settler.
8. This got manifested in:
(i) ballads and
(ii) narratives
9. Its first manifestation was oral.
10. Later it got canonized in Australian literature.
11. This was considered essentially or distinctly Australian.
12. Because of multiculturalism, demand for more flexibility and adaptability in writings increased.
13. Goodwin says:
Australia still contains substantial numbers of advocates for cultural colonialism (the cultural cringe), who emphasize
commonality with and derivativeness from Britain. They exist alongside vociferous nationalistsadvocates, for instance,
of republicanism and a new flag and those who reject both colonialism and nationalism in favour of either internationalism
(that is, emancipation from the pull of both language and land) or of personal withdrawal and self-identification (that is,
emancipation from all social pressures, expectations and categories). (Goodwin. 2)
The Anglo-Saxon/Anglo-Celtic Divide
1. Early white settlers comprised generally:
(i) convicts
(ii) administrative officers, and
(iii) settlers of Irish origin.
2. It is because of this that early Australian literature bears their stamp.
3. This presents:
(i) strains of Republicanism
(ii) desire for a cultural identity
(iii) desire for freedom from the British literary and cultural dominance, what is called cutting loose from the
British umbilical cord.

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4. (i) Ireland was chained to Great Britain.

(ii) These settlers wanted freedom from this colonial legacy.
5. This was true of those who were of Anglo-Celtic descent.
6. Those who had Anglo-Saxon descent wanted to continue the British heritage.
7. Thus, two distinct and divergent strains were discernible both in:
(i) literary output and
(ii) political ideas
8.(i) Those who wanted to copy the British models generally belonged to upper classes.
(ii) the convict ballads and narratives were generally oral. They had in them
(a) the spirit of defiance of the criminal and
(b) a sense of persecution.
9. During this early phase, cultural divide was most manifest among
(i) settlers of Anglo-Saxon descent and
(ii) those Anglo-Celtic or Irish origin.
10. Later, as challenges were thrown by the new immigrants and other events, these differences got pushed to the
background.
11. This initial divide may be at the background that led to referendum in 2000 regarding whether:
(i) Australia should become a Republic or not,
(ii) Whether the Queen of Englands titular position as head of the state should be done away with or not.

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