Paulos's World Lit Blog

Dick represents, to me, how racism is taught not an innate belief. Dick’s friendliness with the Natives despite the differences between how they live and how he lives shows how racism is caused by society, not by an innate belief. He grows up in Will’s new land and even Sal says how the forest near the land to Dick is like the streets of London to Sal and Will. Dick is said to run off somewhere every day and we eventually find out that is to be with the Aboriginals. Dick learns from them and treats them kindly. Even when he is beaten by Will for being with them, he still goes to meet them for the next day. The reader can tell that Dick genuinely cares and likes the Aboriginals. He is never really scared of them, even when they start to gather together he tells Will that Will doesn't need to take a gun out because they are just gathering together to party. Dick provides a new perspective to the story as someone who did not grow up in London and move, as well as spent their childhood...

One thing I thought that was interesting was Grenvile’s choice of excluding the Aboriginal’s voices. Critics often said that this was an ethical problem, but Grenville says she did it because she felt it was not her place to represent the Aboriginals. While critics seem to disagree, I think that it was the right choice to only have us understand small parts of what the Natives mean. Simply based on the fact that we are reading the book from Will’s perspective and that communication was one of the biggest issues between the Aboriginals and settlers in history, I think that it was the correct choice. Also, even if Greenville included words from the Aboriginals, given the personality of her main character Will and how Will thinks of the Natives, most conversations between Will and the Aboriginals would be negative, so critic would say Grenville is misrepresenting the Aboriginals and that is an ethical issue. So, either way Grenville cannot win the critics with this controversial story, un...

With the first meeting between the Aboriginals and Will after Will claimed his new land and the foreboding message from Blackwood that the governor promised the Aboriginals there would be no more white people downstream of the Second Branch, do you guys believe that the Aboriginals will end up fighting with Will? Also, if they do fight do you think there will be a winner or will it be interrupted and if there is a winner who will it be?

  In The Secret River , Kate Greenvile uses Britain’s occupation of New South Wales, now known as Australia to show settler colonialism. A key moment in the novel that shows why the occupation is settler colonialism and not another form of colonialism is through Will saying that “the authorities had realized if the place was ever to sustain itself, it would be by free labor”. This shows that the authorities planned for New South Wales to become a British state, kind of, rather than eventually leave. Some of the long-term effects of settler colonialism, we have already started to hear about. For instance, the Aboriginal people have already started to pick up on English, as Blackwood tells everyone at Will’s new land that “one of the blacks had a bit of English”. Another example is how Will says that “everyone knew the blacks did not plant things”, but it obviously seemed like an aboriginal had planted things where Will claimed his land, which is probably just one of the effects of s...

  One image that immediately came to mind after I read the question was the description of the Watermen’s hall in which William was accepted as an apprentice of Mr. Middleton. Even before William walked into the room, he described the staircase there as “out of a dream”. As he walks in he continues his extravagant description of the room by calling it grand and describing the furniture, such as the rug being Turkish and the table being mahogany, a foreign good, as foreign goods, which at the time were difficult to get and expensive. The image was described after we saw how hard and physically exhausting being a waterman is through William rowing from Hay’s wharf to Sufferance Dock and from Wapping Old Stairs to Fresh Wharf in a week. We, also soon after learned about how little William would make some rough days as he only pocketed pennies. The description and context show me about the immense wealth and work proportion disparity between the business owners and the workers. The own...

One thing that I learned about 18th century Britain was how strict the laws around stealing were. Collarbone, for instance, was caught with bladders worth over 40 shillings and was going to unquestionably be hanged for this robbery. There is no prior robbery done by Collarbone known to the authorities, but he was still given the maximum punishment. After doing research on how much a shilling is, it is around a day’s work for a minimum wage worker. So, after stealing around $4800, assuming someone is making $15 an hour and working 8 hours a day. I could never imagine this rule being implemented today. The law shows how much death was accepted in the 18th century especially compared to today. Another interesting thing I learned was in class about the difference between churches now and churches in 18th century Britain. Churches nowadays are viewed as helpers for the poor. They give money to poor communities and house homeless people. In 18th century Britain though, specifically through W...