ACL 1001 |
Lecture 5 by Ian Syson |
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Cultural Gal, on the Melbarts blog provides a terrific outline of The Danger Game:
Today we're looking at the issues of identity and place via this novel. IDENTITY What is our Identity?
It's an interesting term because while it carries a sense of individuality it also expresses the notion of similarity to others. Think of the related word identical. Think also of some other uses and variations of the word identity:
Much of the work of a novelist in relation to character involves developing identity � in the varied senses of the word. It involves the construction of selves that are placed socially and developed individually. In the case of The Danger Game , it involves the construction of three main characters and some significant second tier characters. main
secondary
The main characters obtain their identity in a number of ways. They each come from the same milieu and so share unavoidable similarities.
Yet each character is also very different from its siblings.
One of the ways Ashton achieves this differentiation is through narrative perspective.
Georgie Arnott makes the point:
How do the different narrative perspectives affect the way the characters are constructed by us as readers? PLACE Recall the notion put forward by the New Critics that I quoted in week 2:
Questions of place, in this scheme of things, are not all that important. After all, if something is of timeless significance, it doesn't matter when or where it is set:
as long as it reflects those universal and permanent values. If this were the case then it would make our jobs a lot easier. We wouldn't need to think about ideas like Australian literature, postcolonial literature, Aboriginal literature or migrant/ethnic literature. We could just have literature and be done with it. Well it's not that simple. Counter movements have arisen which suggest that Place is vital in interpreting a piece of writing.
The rise of Australian literature can be seen as a local recognition that this place needed a form of literary expression which was different from those coming out of Britain or the US. Ideas of place have been central in the dev of ozlit
This idea seemed to take hold and when the Australian literary canon came to be constructed in the 1950s and later, those works which developed and emphasised the importance of the masculine bush ethos were seen to be the significant ones by the critics of the day. The figure of the independent bushman was an attractive figure to radical nationalists who were looking to establish a canon of literature which justified our political and cultural independence from both Britain and America . �Clancy of the Overflow' and �The man from snowy river' seemed to embody all that was noble and different about the Australian character. A lot of the critical work of the last 40 years has argued against this view, instead promoting a sense of diversity in Australian literature and criticism. Australian criticism has moved in this period from needing to assert the unity and value of a place called Australia to being able to think about the diversity of places within the nation. The very idea of the nation has come into question in an era in which globalism appears to be the catch-cry More specifically in relation to place, Bruce Bennett asks
We might get even more specific: what difference does it make if I speak at Vic Uni in St Albans/Footscray as opposed to Melbourne Uni Carlton? What difference does it make if a writer writes from or about Footscray as opposed to Fitzroy; Broadmeadows as opposed to Brunswick ; or the West as opposed to the East? This is an important question for The Danger Game . Read from TDG (opening and p11) . Just what impact does place have on the way we read and/or write? How does Ashton's identity influence the way she writes about place? (We need to know more about her before we can speculate on this) How do our identities influence the way we read about place? (how do we respond to the Brunswick, Collingwood, Abbotsford triangle?) Other ways to think about place: Morgan's My Place .
Another interesting twist on place is no place or absence : Shortly before he dies Jeremy thinks: �missing is a good place to be� (153) just after reflecting that the light he sees from the starts signify their absence. This absence is mirrored by their mother's leaving and resisting discovery. After Grunge/post Grunge Kalinda Ashton's novel The Danger Game was conceived in the post-Grunge period. Ashton, born in 1978, is one of a new group of young Australian writers who have come through the creative writing system flourishing in the universities. As such she has been influenced by the writing of the nineties and is particularly influenced by Christos Tsiolkas � as are a lot of young writers. Tsiolkas has led the charge in a number of areas:
What the Grunge writers have done like so many radical literary movements before them is to lay bare some social and historical truths. A close examination of recent post-Grunge Australian fiction reveals a serious attention to Australian history on the pa rt of a number of younger writers. This, I believe, is one important influence of the grunge movement. There are many moment in TDG that show the traces of the influence of Grunge -- but I think that the novel is also post-Grunge in a number of ways:
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