MEMORY & GRIEF Flashcards
INTRODUCTION
History has witnessed many marginalised communities be subjected to a cruel cycle of subjugation, resulting in continuous grief and loss that transcends generations .
In both Fred D’Aguiar’s multi perspective novel , The longest memory and Wesley Enoch and Deborah Mailman’s one woman play , The 7 stages of Grieving , the connection between grief and memory is examined through experiences of historically oppressed group .
Although they both suggests oppressed group of people can become weighed down and bound to the inseparable nature of memory and grief , some brave individuals can define their own memory by escaping the expectation imposed upon them .
3 arguments topic sentences
- Both D’Aguiar and Enoch and Mailman describe the way grief and memory become inseparable in downtrodden communities .
- Nevertheless, whilst both authors bemoan the way grief defines the memories of the marginalised families, D’Aguiar and Enoch and Mailman also suggests that individuals who reject the limitations of grief can escape the pain of intergenerational trauma and create their own memories , even if such efforts are met with contempt from their own people .
- Having relayed the subjugation of minority groups in the colonial period in America and contemporary Australian society, the writers employ powerful and meaningful moments to force the audience to reflect on reconciliation as a tool for detangling grief and memory.
CONCLUSION
The play and the novel both focus on societies that are deeply afflicted by racial division and suffering of grief and painful memory inflicted by generations of oppression. At the same time both texts offers hope in different ways . Despite these differences , both authors ultimately posit freedom and justice as the only path to the creation of new memories and the end of intergenerational trauma.
BP1 TLM (1)
- ‘memory is pain resurrecting itself’ ….. ‘lost the will to live‘.
- ‘sour face ‘
- ‘seen enough for one lifetime, several lives’
Having endured a lifetime of relentless pain and suffering , The Longest Memory’s Whitechapel , a worn and broken slave , bemoans that ‘memory is pain resurrecting itself’ , and he has ‘lost the will to live‘.
His misery is etched into his face ,earning him nickname ‘sour face ‘ . The bags under his eyes are described as sacks of worries and witnesses of nightmares.
He has ‘seen enough for one lifetime, several lives’.He awaits an imminent death that he hopes will relieve him from his eternal misery that has numbed him.
Such dark and tragic lines revealing itself so early in the novel , serves to shock and sadden the audience as they are invited to visualise the agony and suffering engraved into the faces of slaves which are passed down from generation to generation due to legacy of past injustice .
BP1 7SG (2)
- ‘quietly’ …… ‘the suitcase‘.
At the end of Nana ‘s story , which tells the story of the death of the woman’s grandmother and the devastation that it has caused her family , the woman ‘quietly’ places Nana’s photograph into ‘the suitcase‘.
Throughout the course of the play, this suitcase serves as an evocative symbol, encapsulating not only the weight of loss and sorrow but also the continuum of grief that traverses generations.
The photo of Nana , representing the memory of the old lady and the stories she carried ,is placed into the suitcase to signify the burden of grief which is destined to be transmitted down the linage , perpetuating a cycle of sorrow.
Mailman further appears to suggest that this process seems second nature to the woman , suggesting it is so common for the indigenous families to physically carry around memories of grief of their deceased loved ones and embody the pain of that loss.
BP1: LINKING SENTENCE
As D’Aguiar explores the darkness and misery of oppression through the eyes of a character who has experienced sufferings all his life , Enoch and Mailman demonstrate grief and memory through death .
BP2 TLM (1)
- ‘evidence of 300 years ‘ ….. ‘son’ ….. ‘ dreams that his children will be free’ …….. ‘ dreams that his children will be free’
Despite Whitechapel’s warning backed by ‘evidence of 300 years ‘ , his overly ambitious and romantic ‘son’ Chapel ‘ dreams that his children will be free’ . Chapel feels that‘ dreams that his children will be free’ and yearns to live with Lydia as equals.
Even though Chapel eventually faces a brutal and tragic death when he attempts to flee his life as a slave are unsuccessful, Chapel lives out his days full of hope , determined to make a life for himself with new memories .
D’Aguiar thus demonstrates an individual’s ability to dream beyond grief , even if it ends tragically.
BP2: LINKING SENTENCE
In contrast , Enroch and Mailman portray a story of a successful escape, although the escapee , similarly to Chapel , face’s ostracisation from their own family .
BP2 7SG (2)
- ‘Englishman’. …….. “the Black Princess sipping tea with the Queen.”
2.‘ waving’ and ‘smiling’ .
Mentioned only briefly by her own family , Aunty Grace is a relative of the woman who left Australia to marry an ‘Englishman’.
Her actions are interpreted as betrayal, as reflected by her exclusion and ridiculing as the “the Black Princess sipping tea with the Queen.”
Aunty Grace embarks on an effort to redefine her life and free herself from the grip of suffering and oppression, and Enoch and Mailman endeavour to emphasise the joy of her new memories captured in photos of her ‘ waving’ and ‘smiling’ .
Both texts examine how some people escape their grief and memories that define them as well as the repercussions of doing so; however, while D’Aguiar depicts death as the foremost repercussion, Enoch and Mailman chooses to mediate on the cost of exclusion .
BP3 TLM (1)
- “ how long the master’s daylight continues to be our nights”.
2.
Broken and destroyed, Whitechapel realises the magnitude of grief and suffering he and his masters have initiated upon his own family and he realises the futility of his existence and cries “ how long the master’s daylight continues to be our nights”.
Even though Whitechapel adopted the views and values of his masters all his life , he received no compassion in return. The grieving audience are encouraged to embody the change that the old slave , nor his wife or his son got to witness.
However, while D’Aguiar remains optimistic that change may organically and naturally occur over time with emancipation, the playwright pessimistically argues that reconciliation may only occur with increased activism, unity and input by audience.
BP3 7SG (2)
- ‘places the suitcase at the feet of the audience’
2.‘so many of us’ …. ‘sorry’ ….. ‘ there is no going back’…….. ‘ colourful snake …. like a rainbow serpent ‘.
In the chapter titled‘Plea ‘ , the woman ‘places the suitcase at the feet of the audience’ and symbolically leaves them with the memories and trauma of the past generations of the First Nation Australians.
The audience, having witnessed in chronological order their history , suffering and loss , now bear the responsibility to become agents of reform and reconciliation.
During the final scene of Walking Across the Bridges , a large crowd ‘so many of us’ crossing the Sydney harbour Bridge in the walk of reconciliation with ‘sorry’ across the sky, the woman declares ‘ there is no going back’ , and describes the crowd of people to a ‘ colourful snake …. like a rainbow serpent ‘.
Although in indigenous mythology , the rainbow serpent can be a force of destruction , under the right circumstances it can represent the power of the collective spirit and its capacity to induce the right change and hope which has been suppressed by centuries of colonial violence.
Broadly,both texts thus place the responsibility of change in the hands of those with societal power, Enoch and Mailman return to the empowering imagery of Indigenous dreaming to convey the hope of creating new memories and an end of grief in all its color and glory.
