Week 3: Lecture 2 and The Secret River’s Controversy

    Part B of Lecture 2 about Grenville’s The Secret River detailed the social context and controversy found in the making of the novel. As is evident in the book, the reader finds little to no introspection or thoughts from the aboriginal population. All of the information gathered about them comes from accounts and interactions of the settlers (mostly Thornhill), which is mostly highly bigoted. I understand that the point is that they don’t speak the same language and therefore can’t communicate with Thornhill, who is the perspective we follow throughout. Even so, this results in the indigenous population not having a voice and their story exclusively being told by the colonizers. I somewhat feel that this can muddle the message of the book and its social purpose considering that it falls into the category of a one-sided story for native populations. 

    I had not known about the Walk For Recognition across the Sydney Harbor Bridge in 2000, and how it served as inspiration for the novel. It amazed me that as many as 250k Australians marched for the same issue, and it surprised me that the book was written as contributions to a large social movement like that. I definitely don’t want to discredit Grenville’s work and intent here, but the presentation of the book definitely presents the indigenous people more as plot devices to develop our main characters rather than characters themselves that grow alongside us. I understand the reason for this choice, but I do find that it poses some issues for the novel overall. 


Also, as a message for Michelle, I want to make sure there isn’t any confusion between which lecture is which, since the lecture I watched wasn’t super focused on aboriginal camps and residential schools like the blog post question implies. It was more so about the social controversy regarding Grenville’s novel, though I did skip watching the Grenville reading/interview section since we already watched it in class due to the poor audio quality, if I'm not mistaken. It was titled “Part B of Lecture 2” so I assume this was what the blog question asked for, but I’m not entirely sure. Thank you!

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