Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence
St Lucia
:
University of Queensland Press
,
1996
Z126936
1996
single work
biography
(taught in 26 units)
'The film Rabbit-Proof Fence is based on this true account of Doris Nugi Garimara Pilkington's mother Molly, who as a young girl led her two sisters on an extraordinary 1,600 kilometre walk home. Under Western Australia's invidious removal policy of the 1930s, the girls were taken from their Aboriginal family at Jigalong on the edge of the Little Sandy Desert, and transported halfway across the state to the Native Settlement at Moore River, north of Perth...
The three girls - aged 8, 11 and 14 - managed to escape from the settlement's repressive conditions and brutal treatment. Barefoot without provisions or maps, they set out to find the rabbit-proof fence, knowing it passed near their home in the north. Tracked by native police and search planes, they hid in terror, surviving on bush tucker, desperate to return to the world they knew.
The journey to freedom - longer than many of the legendary walks of [the Australian nation's] explorer heroes... told from family recollections, letters between the authorities and the Aboriginal Protector, and ... newspaper reports of the runaway children.' Source: Publisher's blurb
The Well
Ringwood
:
Viking
,
1986
Z385481
1986
single work
novel
(taught in 17 units)
'Miss Hester Harper, middle-aged and eccentric, brings Katherine into her emotionally impoverished life. Together they sew, cook gourmet dishes for two, run the farm, make music and throw dirty dishes down the well. One night, driving along the deserted track that leads to the farm, they run into a mysterious creature. They heave the body from the roo bar and dump it into the farm's deep well. But the voice of the injured intruder will not be stilled and, most disturbing of all, the closer Katherine is drawn to the edge of the well, the farther away she gets from Hester.' (From the publisher's website.)
My Brilliant Career
Edinburgh
London
:
William Blackwood
,
1901
Z161522
1901
single work
novel
(taught in 56 units)
'My Brilliant Career was written by Stella Franklin (1879-1954) when she was just nineteen years old. The novel struggled to find an Australian publisher, but was published in London and Edinburgh in 1901 after receiving an endorsement from Henry Lawson. Although Franklin wrote under the pseudonym 'Miles Franklin', Lawson’s preface makes it clear that Franklin is, as Lawson puts it 'a girl.'
'The novel relates the story of Sybylla Melvyn, a strong-willed young woman of the 1890s growing up in the Goulburn area of New South Wales and longing to be a writer.' (Publication summary)
The Sound of One Hand Clapping
Sydney
:
Pan Macmillan Australia
,
1997
Z366585
1997
single work
novel
(taught in 4 units)
'In the winter of 1954, in a construction camp in the remote Tasmanian wilderness, when Sonja Buloh was three years old and her father was drinking too much, Sonja's mother walked into a blizzard never to return. Some thirty-five years later, when Sonja visits Tasmania and her drunkard father, the shadows of the past begin to intrude into the present - changing forever his living death and her ordered life.' (Source: Libraries Australia).
Bliss
St Lucia
:
University of Queensland Press
,
1981
8407782
1981
single work
novel
(taught in 11 units)
'For thirty-nine years Harry Joy has been the quintessential good guy. But one morning Harry has a heart attack on his suburban front lawn, and, for the space of nine minutes, he becomes a dead guy. And although he is resuscitated, he will never be the same. For, as Peter Carey makes abundantly clear in this darkly funny novel, death is sometimes a necessary prelude to real life.' (From the author's website.)
LEARNING OUTCOMES
On successful completion of this unit students should be able to:
1. demonstrate an increased understanding of the narrative methods of written and filmic texts and appropriate analytical techniques and skills;
2. make critical comparisons between literary texts and films with an understanding of both the modes and constraints of the verbal and visual media;
3. demonstrate an increased understanding of the influences of culture and society on the production of written texts and film;
4. make literary - critical analyses incorporating notions of national identity and postcoloniality.
UNIT CONTENT
1. Study of selected literary texts in the context of their film versions: problems of interpretation; the limits of each medium.
2. Setting, character, plot, theme, style: their realisation within a socio-cultural context in literary texts and film.
3. The methodological differences between film and literary texts: resources of the written/visual media; problems of time and sequence; language and visual image.
4. Study of selected theories of national identity and postcoloniality.
Seminar Presentation - 40%
Examination - 30%
Brewster, A. (1995). Literary formations: Post-colonialism, nationalism, globalism. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
Hodge, B. and Mishra, V. (1990). Dark side of the dream: Australian literature and the postcolonial mind. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
MacFarlane,B. (1987). Australian cinema 1970 - 1985. Richmond: Heinemann.
Narogin,M. (1990). Writing from the fringe: A study of modern aboriginal literature. Melbourne: Hyland House.
O'Regan,T. (1986). Readings in Australian film. Melbourne: Angus & Robertson.
Schaffer,K. (1988). Women and the bush: Forces of desire in the Australian cultural tradition. Sydney: Cambridge University Press.
Stratton,D. (1990). The avocado plantation: Boom and bust in the Australian film industry. Sydney: Macmillan.
Turner,G. (1993). 2nd edition. National fictions. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
