Colonialism in There There vs The Secret River
In watching the microlectures (the There There one again, and the Secret River one for the first time), I learned and was refreshed on a lot of historical knowledge. I think a common thread that runs among these novels is the idea of ownership/displacement.
In both scenarios, settlers arrive on the land and claim it as their own. They decide it is a place that is theirs, instead of the indigenous people who are already there. In The Secret River, this is especially outlined, as we see William Thornhill physically claiming a plot of land on his own. He arrives at "Thornhill Point" and decides 100 acres of it is his, even though there are people already living in the area.
One big contrast I noticed in the books is the obvious time difference. However, although glaringly obvious, I think it is something that can be important to analyze. In There There, Orange talks about colonialism as something that happened in the past. In looking at all the modern-day characters, we are seeing the lingering effects and erasure that settler colonialism has. In The Secret River, however, Grenville shows us colonialism happening in real-time. Having read There There before The Secret River, Orange's writing has caused me to wonder: what lasting effects will Thornhill and the other settlers have on the culture of the Aboriginal people? Similarly, it causes me to reflect on the settler Colonialism in Northern California, and wonder what exactly it may have looked like while it was occurring. This makes me think of the TED talk we watched in class. It seems to me that Grenville's novel starts from the beginning of the settler take-over, while Orange's novel begins at the "secondly," looking at the effects first.
Hey Cassi! I like how you analyzed the different stages of settler colonialism in the two novels, reinforcing the idea that settler colonialism is "a structure, not an event" that begins and ends. I also agree that in both books, the settlers claim the land they encounter as their own without much of a second thought. To me, this connects to the theme of theft in The Secret River in particular. Many of the Londoner convicts are thieves, but instead of changing their ways after being punished, they transition to stealing something even greater: another people's land (of course, most of them don't see themselves as such). If the punishment for stealing some planks of wood was death at the time, can you imagine what the punishment for stealing a plot of a white lord's land would be? Yet when the Aboriginal people are robbed of such, no immediate punishment occurs.
ReplyDeleteHi Cassi! Wow! I really didn't think of the time period at all! Great observation! I like how you mentioned the different parts of settler colonialism that the novels portray. Since The Secret River is more about how colonialism is impacting the region at the moment, rather than the aftermath much later, I wonder how Grenville will portray how settler colonialism impacts the Aboriginal people in the rest of the novel. I wonder how the Aboriginals will continue to interact with the settlers and how the settlers will react to them and vice versa. Given the current climate regarding natives in the US, I have a feeling that the settler colonialism will result in something similar to the US, such as policies and laws that oppress them.
ReplyDeleteHey Cassi! I agree that there is a common theme of ownership and displacement that takes place in both There There and in The Secret River. In both novels, the Natives lives' are uprooted by the colonizers who take their land. The Secret River, in particular, shows us in real time Thornhill taking lands from the Aborigine people. I also agree that There There and The Secret River go hand-in-hand because of the cause-and-effect relationship demonstrated. There There describes the effects on modern-day Natives that are caused by the actions described in The Secret River during that time period.
ReplyDeleteHey Cassi, after reading your post, I realized even more so how interesting it was that Will, along with the other settlers, are able to just go out and claim any land that is not owned already by other European settlers. They hardly seem to acknowledge that the land is communally owned by different aboriginal tribes. They seem to see the aboriginals as less than human and in doing so they believe that is the reason the aboriginals forfeit their land. The settlers are expecting the aboriginals to play and live by their culture's rules while in reality they are the ones who went into the aboriginals land and should be trying to live by their rules.
ReplyDeleteHey Cassi, thanks for sharing. I agree that a huge difference in these stories is time, as well as perspective. Personally, I like that we, as readers of these two books, get to read stories told by the perspective of 2 different groups, as well as better understanding the impacts of settler colonialism in the moment and afterwards.
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