PROSE - Sorry

Question 1

Written?

Answer 1

2002

Question 2

Published?

Answer 2

2007

Question 3

Author?

Answer 3

Gail Jones

Question 4

Set?

Answer 4

WA, 1930/40s

Question 5

Stolen generations

Answer 5

removal of aboriginal children from their families, adopted by non-indigenous families and raised by Anglo Australian culture

Question 6

Apology speech

Answer 6

Feb 13, 2008. Kevin Rudd formally apologised for the suffering caused by the decades of mistreatment of indigenous Australian’s

Question 7

QUOTE (superior race)

Answer 7

‘The aborigine, he said, like all primitive peoples, had a tendency to expire on contact with a superior race’

Question 8

QUOTE (seized her from her mother)

Answer 8

‘Someone from the government… seized her from her mother… they never saw each other again… Mary was 6 years old when she was taken from her mother’

Question 9

QUOTE (campfire)

Answer 9

‘[Mary’s mother] had rolled into the campfire one night and was too tired, or too sad, maybe, to roll out… so lost in grief, so irremediably heartbroken, that she did not care to remove herself from the unholy flames’

Question 10

QUOTE (subjects)

Answer 10

‘They were subjects, or rather objects, of his research’

Question 11

QUOTE (not… of humanity)

Answer 11

‘not noble savages or extraordinary specimens of humanity’

Question 12

QUOTE (lie against a breast)

Answer 12

‘If it had not been for the aboriginal woman who raised me, I would have never have known what it is like to lie against a breast’

Question 13

QUOTE (Mary.. looked after Perdita)

Answer 13

Mary… looked after Perdita daily attending to her, offering companionship, knowledge and canny advice’

Question 14

QUOTE (alternative mothers)

Answer 14

‘alternative mothers’, ‘I was nourished and cared for’

Question 15

QUOTE (baby in black arms)

Answer 15

‘the baby… meanwhile flourished in black arms, which found and embraced her’

Question 16

QUOTE (surprisingly intelligent)

Answer 16

‘…seemed surprisingly intelligent and quick witted and were at home sitting on the Earth and hunting and gathering it’s produce’

Question 17

QUOTE (forms of knowledge)

Answer 17

‘There were forms of knowledge of the land and the body… that Perdita learned especially and only, from her sister, Mary’

Question 18

QUOTE (knew everything)

Answer 18

‘they knew everything… everything about the world’

Question 19

ideological purpose

Answer 19

relating to the need for Australian readers to understand their forgetting and silencing towards the suffering caused to Aboriginal people, while also realising their need to take reconciliation further

Question 20

Acts as

Answer 20

a representation of Australia’s past in relation to the treatment of Aboriginal people

Question 21

Great Australian Silence

Answer 21

the prolonged silencing towards the mistreatment of Aboriginal Australian’s

Question 22

QUOTE (allegory)

Answer 22

“My novel allegorizes the ‘forgetting’ of the so called Stolen Generations”

Question 23

Allegory is seen through

Answer 23

Perdita, whereby she goes through a traumatic experience and is silent about it, forgetting the truth. Death retellings, silence, traumatic experience

Question 24

Motif of Silence (Great Australian Silence)

Answer 24

W.E.H Stanner proposed in 1968 that there is a ‘cult of forgetfulness practised on a national scale’

Question 25

Motif of Silence (Perdita)

Answer 25

Practically speechless, she has a stutter which has 'deformed my mouth, my wanting to say'

Question 26

QUOTE (Perdita killing her father)

Answer 26

'[Perdita] held the knife with both hands and plunged it into Nicholas' back... [then] into the side of his neck

Question 27

Motif of Silence (Stella)

Answer 27

Knows it was Perdita but is silent, neglects that it happened just as Anglo-Australian's neglect mistreatment happened,. She takes herself into another reality, trying to escape

Question 28

QUOTE (reciting Macbeth)

Answer 28

'Calmly reciting Macbeth... performing on a private stage'

Question 29

Motif of the Snow Dream

Answer 29

Symbolizes a blanket of forgetfulness that is still present even today. Perdita finds comfort in the fantasy world, she chose to fall into this ignoranc. Ends with this to allow readers to recognise the need for further steps to break the ignorance (still occurs)

Question 30

QUOTE (snow dream)

Answer 30

'a field of flakes descending... a forgetful white... everything disappearing under the gradual snow'. 'I willed myself to think instead of Stella's snow dream'

Question 31

Death retellings are used to

Answer 31

symbolise the stolen generations, highlighting the forgetting of Anglo-Australian's in what they have done. To reinforce the idea that Australia's past must be retold time and time again before the whole truth is revealed

Question 32

QUOTE (should have said sorry)

Answer 32

'I should have said sorry to my sister, Mary. Sorry, my sister, oh my sister sorry'

Question 33

QUOTE (once Perdita knew the truth)

Answer 33

'The knotted stutter was almost entirely gone... something has opened, released'

Question 34

QUOTE (Perdita's memory of her fathers death)

Answer 34

'[Perdita] was not at all sure who had killed [her father]'... 'there was a dissolving of memory as she approached its substance'