voices & storytelling Flashcards

1
Q

C = novel in which traditional separation between History and stories does not hold – not because
of any postmodern narrative playfulness (ever since Hayden White’s The Content of the Form, 1987,
or even work by JF Lyotard at the end of the 1970s, see too Canadian critic Linda Hutcheon,
early 1990s, it has been a commonplace to interrogate the ways in which narrative shapes History
as much as story – question of mediation, agendas etc.).
But

A

overlapping of History & story in C has to do with Indigenous Australian ways of being and
knowing, and of passing that knowledge on from one generation to the next.

Storytelling, in the context of Aboriginal Oz, and of C, is in actual fact the way in which History and memory are
preserved.

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2
Q

Oral narratives
do not sit still – they are constantly on the move, wandering off in numerous directions and
digressions, shifting from the mundane to the spectacular, morphing from comedy to tragedy
and back again. Writing (as opposed to telling) stories

A

fixes/immobilizes them, preventing them
from evolving over time, turning some stories into “classics”

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3
Q

Unpredictability of storytelling (including length – sometimes over several days/weeks) replaced by teleological drive to find out what happens, how things end – focus on resolution. Furthermore, in oral storytelling, the teller
always alert to

A

the audience, shifting gears in response to murmurings, responses, facial expressions and general body language. No such shifting possible with written text

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4
Q

unpredictability and time lapse

A

See p461 when Will is overcome by “memories of the old people”:

“if you sat long enough, looking closely into their eyes, you saw aglow the amazing world full of stories they told in competition with each other. No my boy, listen to me first. It wasn’t like that old fool told you. Never listen to him. He is only number one for a pack of lies. It was like what I am telling you because I saw it from the start to finish and he only know what I copied for him. Old stories circulating around the Pricklebush were full of the utmost intrigues concerning the world. Legends of the sea were told in instalments every time you walked in the door of some old person’s house. Stories lasted months on end, and if you did not visit often, you would never know how the story ended”

Passage captures fabric of Aboriginal life: perhaps with exception of origin story, there is no one story, & it is in
listening to variety of (potentially contradictory) stories that History & memory passed on (“intrigues concerning the world”). Note how responses of listeners also involves looking – full sensory experience. Note also how stories expand to literally fill space, taking on agency of their own (“Old stories circulating around the P”), reinforced in fact that “stories” and “legends” are subject of last 3 sentences. And, most importantly, stories appear endless, or at least unbound by Western expectations of getting to end of story in one sitting. Storytelling is means of ensuring community interaction (“if you did not visit, you would never know”), & is the preserve of the “old people” whose role is therefore central (as opposed to marginal) in community.

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5
Q

As soon as we try to read for plot/story, we are

A

thrown off track as characters wander in and out and the text appears to start over and over again (we think it
“begins here”, p. 1, and in a sense it does with the creation story, but even in opening chapter we move abruptly from an introduction to Norm to a not so obviously relevant story about the Afghans and their camels, to the decision to change the river’s name to Normal and finally to Uncle Mickey’s collection of bullet cartridges).

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6
Q

In opening chapter alone, one central character is
placed on same level as the Afghan brothers and Uncle Mickey who never reappear. Narrative hierarchies are upset from the outset and digression is foregrounded as the main storytelling tool. Stories, and the voice(s) which tell them, are therefore central to our understanding of this rich and complex novel. The aim of this lecture will be to interrogate the relationship between voice(s)

A

and storytelling, then to analyze the ways in which stories are presented as central to survival for
Aboriginal communities, and then finally to consider how C itself is a telling story

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7
Q

first paragraph relating origin story, page 1

A

First sentence starts out with awe-inspiring sentence supported by seemingly omniscient narrator’s affirmations which place action beyond the confines of the earth. The serpent is ancient (“ancestral”), larger than life (“larger than storm clouds”), and other-worldly (“came down from the stars”) and exists regardless of humans as there is no reference to time or place which would help situate this story or understand its relevance.

When, in next sentence, narrator actually does mention “you” (generic or individual?), it is to align “you” with a bird and to let us know that what seemed like the kind of omniscience we associate with deities was in fact simply a different perspective – that of a bird, and so we move from the massive scale of omniscience to the tiny scale of “the eyes of a bird”. So, from outset, multiple perspectives at play, & sort of constant uncertainty regarding scale (epic/intimate).

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8
Q

When paragraph 2 begins, it is to enjoin us to “picture” this “creative serpent”, and the use of the imperative form here asserts the authority of the narrative voice, a strategy that continues for the first few pages (“Imagine”, p2).

It is in this way that the hallmarks of oral storytelling are inserted into the text, oscillating between

A

historico-mythical affirmations, deictics and the present tense which situate the action here and now (but also in an indeterminate spacetime), calls to the imagination and assertions of non-human agency (the snake, the rivers etc.).

We move between the epic and the intimate, just in the manner of oral stories, and AW therefore immediately creates an illusion of orality which will continue right through the novel.

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9
Q

Narrative voice: who is narrating this story?

A

An Indigenous voice (although this same voice often imitates, with great humour, non-Indigenous voices and attitudes – see below) as “the inside knowledge” (referred to on p3) makes clear. This Indigenous narrator is:

  • disembodied & genderless, the repository of “a particular kind of knowledge” (p3) which is
    simultaneously ancient & sacred, and also quite particular/mundane & sometimes just basic
    gossip.
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10
Q

The Indigeneity of the narrator is foregrounded in the frequent insertion of non-English
or Waanyi words

A

without providing a translation or even glosing the meaning.

See eg. p9 when the Indigenous people at the re-naming ceremony “mumbled Ngabarn, Ngabarn, Mandagi” (bring/carry, carry the white man) while Norm utters “a fruit salad full of abuse” – all of which the non-Indigenous townsfolk remain oblivious to, just as they are oblivious to the inside

Indigenous humour since “the river only had one name from the beginning of time, and that was Wangala” (p3). Here the insertion of Waanyi words provides humour2 and undermines the colonial obsession with naming and re-naming (form of claim-staking), but much later in novel, insertion has v different function, as when Will communicates with Joseph Midnight (p452) one
last time. A solemnity is conferred to this final leave-taking, and although some words are glosed in the text (“Najba ngambalanya nanangkani karrinjana – There is a man standing there looking at us”), the English meaning is either approximate (words literally mean: see/look, us, that one, while standing – see CNED book) or, later in that same passage, inexistent (“Warawara yajna ngawu ninya lajib” = keep talking, I you hear – suggestion that Midnight and ocean are one).

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11
Q

it is not just these non-English words which create a barrier between non-Indigenous reader and this text

A

Will and Midnight also communicate
through signs (“‘What are you doing there?’ he asked Will with a flick of his wrist” / “‘Going
home,’ Will replied with sign language”, p452). As in passage where Midnight imparts Dreaming
routes to Will, so here the actual signs made are not described, ensuring that some aspects of
Aboriginal languages, communication, and culture remain hidden from Western reader

While in some passages narrator creates parallels between Indigenous and Western customs and cultures
(see commentary of passage in cave pp419-21) and therefore adopts a didactic approach to telling
this/these story/ies, in other places the sacredness of Indigenous knowledges and cultures is
safeguarded from the Western gaze.

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12
Q

Inextricability of voice(s) & stories obvious from outset in opening passage. Already commented on: which nation in “A nation”? and who is “We” in “we know your story already”?

A

Although some critics have suggested that the words could be uttered by either non-Indigenous or Indigenous characters, it is hard to imagine that AW has any truck with idea that non-Indigenous are in business of silencing anyone in contemporary Oz. It is because the narrator is such an accomplished storyteller, mimicking non-Indig ways of talking, knowing & being that voice is so central to the narrative (& foregrounds oral storytelling mechanisms – imitations, digressions,
mythologies etc.)

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13
Q

Use of imperatives throughout novel foreground this voice as an authority –

A

see p146: “Listen to this. The talk was all over town. He did not? He did. Will Phantom of all persons mind you had abandoned, flown the coup, walked. Walked where? Walked to Eastside. What did Norm say, his son and all? He swung the axe”.

The imperative here creates an illusory sense of intimacy when coupled with the deictic “this”, and rhetorical Qs & short answers mimic the lively, interactive exchanges associated with orality, as do colloquial expressions such as “mind you” or “his son and all”.

Illusion of many voices channeled through one narrator. (FOR THIS SEE ESPECIALLY p391 – “we”, vernacular, conversational tone, capitalization for ironic oral
emphasis etc., pp392-3 also.)

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14
Q

This cacophony of voices is also suggested in narrator’s mimicking of non-Indigenous conversations and expressions.

A

See for instance p125 where first derogatory comment on Mozzie Fishman & convoy (“a blot of strange-looking blacks appeared like an eyesore on the horizon” is classic example of narrator slipping into non-Indigenous focalization (not attributed to any particular character – more a general doxa).

Followed by second derog comment, more of a Q (“Who knew why there were boongs squatting down on the river-bank?”), this time attributed to a group of “maddened men” (adjective & alliteration here poke fun at them, especially since their reaction is to “defend” their “boggle-eyed kin with rifle fire” – mixture here of more mockery & extreme violence which we will examine later in the course). The racial slur here italicized so as to mark narrator’s distance from it.

Same process in later para, same page: “The words about dirty people and whatnot, which travelled like wildfire, spread down the bush telegraph: Of seeing them hordes of blacks on the road again”. Or “All we want to do, the residents chimed to each other behind
locked doors in a mighty big hurry, is to guard the decency of clean-living people. They had a respectable place and there were Aboriginals travelling foot to mouth. Worse than even…? What? A bandwagon of politicians”.

Italicization of racist comments one way for narrator to emphasize her distance from them, & also means of offsetting them against her own ironic comments/descriptions of those who utter these words: the racist, non-Indigenous folk are referred to as “residents”, thus foregrounding their disconnection with Country, unlike the Indigenous inhabitants of Oz as represented here by Fishman & crew.

The opposition between “a respectable place” (the white residents) and “travelling foot to mouth” (Fishman et al), & implicit hierarchy set up, mocked by narrator who ironically describes siege mentality of local
residents (“behind locked doors”).

Also, even more ostensibly even-handed responses of whitefolk, signaled by shift into normal typography (“They had a respectable place and there were
Aboriginals travelling foot to mouth”), betrays offensiveness in use of “Aboriginal” as noun

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15
Q

The narrator reserves her most acerbic irony for the reaction of Uptown inhabitants to
Truthful’s naming of the 3 boys accused of murdering Gordie.

A

(Whole chapter in fact interesting for confrontation of opposing stories and ways of knowing, but will just focus on a few ex here.)

The “wisdom of the elders” (p306), their incredulity towards Uptowners (“Who bloody knows what kind of traditions people have, who say they came from nowhere and don’t believe in their own god anymore” p307) are opposed firstly to Bruiser’s rhetorical performance (“sticking to his script”, “feigned innocence” p311) and then to the malaise caused by the naming of Aaron Ho Kum (unlike the two others, sons of Fishman and Angel Day, his father is barman Lloydie): “A penny for your thoughts now, big, righteous Uptown” (p316) says the narrator, who goes on over a page and a half to imitate justificatory discourse for going after him (“Nevertheless, black was black” p317). Ultimately, Bruiser’s voice shouts the loudest and “the townsfolk were in awe” (p314). In this way, AW provides strong indictment of Uptown’s violent racism

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16
Q

Conflicting and Overlapping Stories (written/oral; Indigenous/non-Indigenous)

A

C is concerned with squaring up to conflicting stories of
Oz, mainly Indigenous and non-Indigenous (although a lot of caricaturing, AW careful to generalize too much: hence an honest portrayal of in-fighting among the 2 Aboriginal communities in novel & depiction of Irish priest – although some might say he is a caricature of
Irishness…), but also written & oral stories/History.

17
Q

“Once upon a time” (+ whole 1st para) in which arrival of
ES is presented in the form of a European fairy tale (see too final para before break in text on p62). All codes of fairy tale mobilized here (atemporality, magic, monsters, non-human agencies etc.) & reinforced thru sibilant alliteration (calling to mind fact that fairy tales too were originally oral tales, until committed to written form by Perrault, Grimm & HCA). Whole passage (p42-3) in fact recalls motifs of FT, but gradually blurs the focus from fairy tale to generic folk or oral tale, before finally morphing into syncretic tale which yokes together Western and Indigenous (more of this when we come to Q of Affiliations)

A

Suffice to say for now that this story (which
only the omniscient narrator is privy to, Elias having lost his memory by the time he arrives in Desperance) becomes part & parcel of “an important Dreaming story” (p43), itself related to “the ancient story of the prodigal coppiced tree” (p43) – use of adjective “prodigal” = nod to Biblical story & yet another indication of syncretism

18
Q

If fairy tale codes used primarily to make sense of
Uptown reactions to ES’ arrival (particularly mocking tone on p62), ES & his story is nevertheless
(almost) incorporated into (“put alongside”) Indigenous History:

A

“This was the story about ES which was later put alongside the Dreamtime by the keepers of the Law to explain what happened once upon a time with those dry claypans sitting quietly out yonder there for anybody to look at, and wonder about what was happening to the world, and to be happy knowing at least this was paradise on earth, and why would anyone want to live anywhere else” (p53). Far from the angst (“pained the hearts”, “sad women”, “moaning elm trees”, p62) provoked by Elias’s arrival in Uptown, the Aboriginal incorporation of this chapter into their collective history is celebratory, communal (“for anyone to look at”), awesome (“wonder”), and “happy” and content.

Elias is chased out of town by Uptowners (explanation deferred until p362), now persona non grata, yet
he is celebrated and associated with the sacred Dreamtime by the Pricklebush

19
Q

In most other parts of the novel, stories and History as cultural elements in Indigenous and non-Indigenous Desperance are poles apart. Not least because while Indigenous culture functions thru an oral archive, non-Indigenous History & culture are written, therefore static and immutable. Mockery of written archive by narrator p82 (top of page) – desacralization of official archive in image of “yellowing pages chewed by defecating vermin”, a mockery which continues when narrator ironically imitates Uptown self-importance: “it was their basic human right” (to “shoot the bastard” (Elias) – perverse reversal of human rights discourse by white Uptowners).

This vocabulary of decrepitude and rot is in marked contrast to

A

the powerful connections between Country, stories and embodiment in Indigenous cultures: “Norm saw a river. … Its incredible flow twisted around a hundred kilometers of stories the prophets had tabled in the scriptures of law, safely locked away in the vaults of their minds” (p291).

Far from being meaningless “blueinked words” or “countless whorled words” (p82), these stories are measured in relation to and anchored in the land and the rivers. Narrator deploys Western biblical and bank tropes here (“prophets”, “scriptures”, “locked away”, “vaults”) to better buttress contrast between, on one
hand, living stories which are constantly in movement yet stored in collective memory and, on other, dead words on a material page which are good only for vermin to feed and defecate on

20
Q

Stories presented as central to Indigenous life, more of an ontology than anything else. See p235: “Men such as Norm kept a library chock-a-block full of stories of the old country stored in their heads.”

” Again, the ironic tension here between the scriptural and the oral is foregrounded through

A

topos of library as physical space which becomes merely a metaphor to help nonIndigenous readers to grasp importance of stories in Indig cultures.

These stories are for entertainment, they preserve memory and History, but they are also used for bartering (“trading stories for other stories” p235), and, perhaps most importantly, as an indication of how to live best: “etiquette of the what to do, how to behave for knowing how to live like a proper human being, alongside spirits for neighbours in dreams”).

Perhaps the only moment where non-Indigenous Science/History and Indigenous stories are harmoniously combined is when Elias and Norm trade stories p237: Elias’s knowledge of prehistoric flora & fauna understood by Norm as “other stories” which he respectfully listens to & incorporates into his own Indigenous knowledge.
Confirmed a few pages later when Norm (focalizer at this point) brings two together (thinking about gropers): “A place where they could have returned to from the land in ancient times like the palaeontologists say, or skies if they flew like the elders say in the Law of the Dreamtime” (p239). Both stories/knowledges places on same level.

21
Q

Stories deeply connected to ways of knowing and sharp opposition between non-Indig and Indig.

See for ex opening C9, p264-5. “Everyone in the Pricklebush knew” + presentation of myth of sea woman = shared knowledge, but beyond that, both verbal & non-verbal ways of knowing and passing on stories & knowledge stressed here (top p265):

A

blind people see spirits, & uncertainty over whether stories made up or not, but “uncanny”, embodied sensations (“they got a funny feeling under their skin”) are revealed to be just as important/truthful as words: “they always knew when someone was going to die”.

22
Q

Mozzie Fishman: “the convoy moved in reptile silence over the tracks of the travelling mighty ancestor whom they worshipped through singing the story that had continued for years. The crossing of the continent to bring the ceremony north-east to the Gulf, to finish it up, was a rigorous Law, laid down piece by piece in a book of another kind covering thousands of kilometres” (p119).

A

Note the nod to “serpent” origin story, veneration of & respect for ancestors, the ongoingness of “the story”, the metaphor of the book to facilitate non-Indigenous comprehension of the Dreaming and songlines.

These colliding attitudes to storytelling are revealing of very different epistemologies & ontologies, but the ways in which they are brought together by AW in this novel enable her to present a telling story

23
Q

A Telling (Meaningful) Story

A

Conflicting stories central to novel, giving the lie to Uptown claims that what happens in Desperance, and particularly murder of Gordie, “was not Australia” (p303) and was “the sort of thing that only happened elsewhere in the mean, bad world, where the crazy people lived” (p303).

The whole novel reveals the extreme violence at the heart of settler Australia that no amount of rhetorical posturing can dissimulate. In this sense, no doubt that C is a telling story.

24
Q

Against these ancient knowledges, AW juxtaposes not so much non-Indigenous knowledges but how doxas function, reinforce themselves, and provide scapegoats for a profoundly violent society: “Everyone knew of those little petrol sniffers”, “Everyone had seen these boys walking about town, speeded up on petrol fumes and looking like zombies”, “Disgusting skin and bone creatures” (p313).

A

AW foregrounding how (racist) court of public opinion operates here in diminishing & dehumanizing in public discourse the 3 boys who will later die in police custody after brutal violence at hands of Bruiser (more in chapter on violence).

Same thing in relation to Will: “Everyone in town knew the story” (p336), “The great speculation”, “Word grew”, “Anyone could see”, “Everyone knew that” (p337). Aw shows how Uptown constructs a narrative for itself that suits its preconceptions and prejudices – through a
proliferation of stories which no real foundation. As Bruiser thinks on p315 “Lack of evidence still makes my blood boil. Lack of evidence. Bullshit” – what is important is his narrative and to hell with proof.

25
Q

Multiple ironic interventions on part of narrator expose the self-justificatory and supremacist narratives which uphold settler colonial Australia. See p445: “The busy, industrious, toiling residents…” where narrator mockingly mimics

A

the narratives they tell themselves as they destroy the environment, incorporating cartoon-like onomatopoeia to render them all the more ridiculous. What is exposed here is mercenary, Capitalist-driven mindset which subtends colonialism and leads to destruction of habitat

26
Q

Other telling stories are present only on attentive reading, such as argument between Elias and Norm about exact date when Angel left Norm for MF (p228). Not so much argument itself (although symbolism of calendar pictures clear: mountains = Norm, unmoving, unmoved & galahs screeching at each other (cockatoo) Norm & Angel & their fractious relationship) as dates
– bicentenary of Australia/Invasion Day. Their argument appears to suggest that

A

settler colonialism hard to pin down to one specific date & that what is important is the division and bad will it provoked.

27
Q

To conclude, AW takes care to consistently foreground poetics of care at heart of Indigenous beliefs, as when Will tends to Elias’s dead body. Arriving at a rock cave, Will observes that “the walls were covered by ancestral paintings telling stories of human history, made and
remade by ochre paints, as the forefathers whispered the charter of their land” (p174).

A

The interplay between singular & plural forms here (“stories”, “history”, “made and remade”) reveals the importance of plurality of stories in a common human history. These stories which are “made and remade” are something of a meta-commentary for whole novel where stories are indeed “made and remade” over and over. As we move towards the end of the novel, we are told of Angel Day and Mozzie’s men who are looking for her: “Their lives went off into another story” (p435), a story to which we will never be privy. This is a way for AW to remind uw that the story we are inside is that: just a story, among others.

28
Q

(From A Fletcher article) By the time we reach Carpentaria’s final chapter, we’ve witnessed the death of many lives and the destruction of many storylines, and we know, from the novel’s fortune-telling time, that more tragedy waits in the future. But still, the final chapter stirs hope and healing by continuing the novel’s interactive method of creating chances for re-creation,
beginning the story anew.

A

So it goes in the novel’s final paragraphs, which turn back upon themselves with insistent rapidity, remaking the narrative over and over:

“. . .In his heart, Norm knew he had no more journeys to make. Well! Not for the moment. . .” (p498)

“. . .The boy thought about all those eventualities, where the enigma of time sidestepped desire and ran away from dreams. . .all dreams come true somehow, Norm murmured” (p499).

“. . .Neither spoke, because neither would have heard the other. It was much better to listen to the mass choir of frogs. . .” (p499).

Every time that a vaster perspective imposes the story—“no more journeys. . .the enigma of time. . .neither would have heard the other”—it’s interrupted by a fresh direction: “‘Well! Not for the moment’. . .all dreams come true. . .the choir of frogs.”

And thus it is that Carpentaria itself ends with two episodes of narrative renewal.