Secret River
Shaira Sanchez
05/09/12
Shaira Sanchez
05/09/12
The Secret River by Kate Grenville
Essay
Explain the way that narrative devices have been employed by an author to construct a representation of people or places in at least one text that you have studied. You must make specific reference to “The Secret River.”
One of Australia’s finest writers Kate Grenville wrote The Secret River which challenges traditional gender roles of women in the early nineteenth century London and Australia. The novel has challenged the female stereotype in a patriarchal society through the strong female character of Sal Thornhill. Sal has been the brains of her family through their tough times in London and their settlement in Sydney. Sal is the wife of William Thornhill, a convict. The memory of how the gentry treated Thornhill pushed him to work himself up into the foreign land of Australia to become like that gentleman he had served once back in London, in the water of Thames–the one with the power and the one who looked down on him who represents the working class. His determination to set off a space for himself in the foreign land eventually placed him and some of the settlers in direct opposition to the Aboriginal people by their desire to finally have control on their own lives. The use of a wide range of narrative devices in The Secret River has vividly taken the readers back to the nineteenth century where power and wealth determines a man’s position in the society.
Sal Thornhill has been constructed in The Secret River as a strong female character who challenges traditional gender roles in the early nineteenth century–mainly when women were biologically, socially and intellectually inferior. Although Sal was raised in a quite comfortable lifestyle, she still has managed to cope with the tragic events in her life as a mother and as a wife. We see through Thornhill’s limited omniscient point of view that Sal would have to “brighten herself up” because they both
05/09/12
Shaira Sanchez
05/09/12
The Secret River by Kate Grenville
Essay
Explain the way that narrative devices have been employed by an author to construct a representation of people or places in at least one text that you have studied. You must make specific reference to “The Secret River.”
One of Australia’s finest writers Kate Grenville wrote The Secret River which challenges traditional gender roles of women in the early nineteenth century London and Australia. The novel has challenged the female stereotype in a patriarchal society through the strong female character of Sal Thornhill. Sal has been the brains of her family through their tough times in London and their settlement in Sydney. Sal is the wife of William Thornhill, a convict. The memory of how the gentry treated Thornhill pushed him to work himself up into the foreign land of Australia to become like that gentleman he had served once back in London, in the water of Thames–the one with the power and the one who looked down on him who represents the working class. His determination to set off a space for himself in the foreign land eventually placed him and some of the settlers in direct opposition to the Aboriginal people by their desire to finally have control on their own lives. The use of a wide range of narrative devices in The Secret River has vividly taken the readers back to the nineteenth century where power and wealth determines a man’s position in the society.
Sal Thornhill has been constructed in The Secret River as a strong female character who challenges traditional gender roles in the early nineteenth century–mainly when women were biologically, socially and intellectually inferior. Although Sal was raised in a quite comfortable lifestyle, she still has managed to cope with the tragic events in her life as a mother and as a wife. We see through Thornhill’s limited omniscient point of view that Sal would have to “brighten herself up” because they both