Distinctive Australian Vision Speech Script
Distinctive Australian Vision Speech
In my presentation of Distinctive Australian Visions, I will analyze first, two of Douglas Stewart’s poems, namely “Lady Feeding the Cats” and “Cave Painting”, second, the short story “American Dreams” by Peter Carey and third, my personal response. In “Lady Feeding the Cats”, Stewart portrays the image of a poor woman from the slums who goes to the Domain in order to feed feral cats. Stewart pictures the torn and tattered slum lady using descriptive words such as “her bonnet much bedraggled” and “in her broken shoes”. He also referred to the cats using negative connotations such as “furtive she cats” and “villainous toms”. However, in the second stanza, Stewart’s usage of bathos to juxtapose the transformation from the dirty woman to a “princess out of a tower” and the “queen of the cats” conveys how the cats perceives what others see as insignificant as someone who is noble and should be regarded highly. In the last line of the poem, Stewart strongly closes the poem by highlighting the subtle and gradual change of the poor slum lady into someone who is highly respected by others. Stewart firmly believes that nature and mankind coexist to mutually benefit each other, as shown by how the woman fulfilled the cat’s physical needs and how the cats satisfied the woman’s emotional needs. Stewart’s other vision is to say that those who care for nature are valuable though they themselves may appear insignificant. In “Cave Painting”, Stewart created the image of hand paintings in a cave being meticulously examined by a group of people. This poem mainly focuses on historical and human aspects. Here, Stewart purposely created a mysterious tone using words such as “dark” and “black” while concurrently creating a reflective mood using words such as “remembered” and “speak for all humanity” to describe the ominous yet insightful feeling during his experience inside the cave. By using personification in “shadows of hands, with a
In my presentation of Distinctive Australian Visions, I will analyze first, two of Douglas Stewart’s poems, namely “Lady Feeding the Cats” and “Cave Painting”, second, the short story “American Dreams” by Peter Carey and third, my personal response. In “Lady Feeding the Cats”, Stewart portrays the image of a poor woman from the slums who goes to the Domain in order to feed feral cats. Stewart pictures the torn and tattered slum lady using descriptive words such as “her bonnet much bedraggled” and “in her broken shoes”. He also referred to the cats using negative connotations such as “furtive she cats” and “villainous toms”. However, in the second stanza, Stewart’s usage of bathos to juxtapose the transformation from the dirty woman to a “princess out of a tower” and the “queen of the cats” conveys how the cats perceives what others see as insignificant as someone who is noble and should be regarded highly. In the last line of the poem, Stewart strongly closes the poem by highlighting the subtle and gradual change of the poor slum lady into someone who is highly respected by others. Stewart firmly believes that nature and mankind coexist to mutually benefit each other, as shown by how the woman fulfilled the cat’s physical needs and how the cats satisfied the woman’s emotional needs. Stewart’s other vision is to say that those who care for nature are valuable though they themselves may appear insignificant. In “Cave Painting”, Stewart created the image of hand paintings in a cave being meticulously examined by a group of people. This poem mainly focuses on historical and human aspects. Here, Stewart purposely created a mysterious tone using words such as “dark” and “black” while concurrently creating a reflective mood using words such as “remembered” and “speak for all humanity” to describe the ominous yet insightful feeling during his experience inside the cave. By using personification in “shadows of hands, with a
Cited: Carey, Peter. American Dreams. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1974. “The Domain”. JPEG. 2000. Sydney Attractions. Sydney on the Web. Web. 10 June 2014.