Starting from the premise that shame has been central to the definition of white Australian identity since early white settlement, due to the association with convictism and to “cultural cringe”, the essay investigates the literary representations of shame as specifically related to the history of atrocities and rights violation committed against the Indigenous people of Australia. In particular, it analyses some short stories by K.S. Prichard and the novel Sarah Thornhill by Kate Grenville. The critical reading of Prichard’s stories focuses on the internalized experience of racial shame and on the analysis of the counter-shaming rhetorical strategies aiming at restructuring the relations of self/Other and subverting the colonial hierarchical assumptions of white superiority and black inferiority. The analysis of Grenville’s novel, on the other hand, shows that shame involves a process of self-awareness and self-transformation that is not meant to relieve or absolve the sense of shame, but to denounce what has been concealed and needs to be uncovered. The essay aims to prove that the literary representation of the two emotional paths of the shame of the oppressor and the pain of the oppressed may go in the direction of a political responsibility in the process of reconciliation.
Different Shades of Shame. The Responsibilities and Legacies of a Shameful History in Australian Fiction
PES ANNALISA
2019-01-01
Abstract
Starting from the premise that shame has been central to the definition of white Australian identity since early white settlement, due to the association with convictism and to “cultural cringe”, the essay investigates the literary representations of shame as specifically related to the history of atrocities and rights violation committed against the Indigenous people of Australia. In particular, it analyses some short stories by K.S. Prichard and the novel Sarah Thornhill by Kate Grenville. The critical reading of Prichard’s stories focuses on the internalized experience of racial shame and on the analysis of the counter-shaming rhetorical strategies aiming at restructuring the relations of self/Other and subverting the colonial hierarchical assumptions of white superiority and black inferiority. The analysis of Grenville’s novel, on the other hand, shows that shame involves a process of self-awareness and self-transformation that is not meant to relieve or absolve the sense of shame, but to denounce what has been concealed and needs to be uncovered. The essay aims to prove that the literary representation of the two emotional paths of the shame of the oppressor and the pain of the oppressed may go in the direction of a political responsibility in the process of reconciliation.
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