Cirrus@Austlit

'Drawing on Deleuze's concept of 'becoming', this paper explores the indigenizing processes of the two female protagonists in Patrick White's A Fringe of Leaves and Gail Jones' Sorry, respectively. Becoming-indigenous, as one form of becoming-minor, serves as an escape, a line of flight from the dominant molar lines of the majority, which, in these two novels, are represented b the binary oppositions of the white settlers and the Aboriginal people. The process of indigenization represents the white settlers' search for the possibility of white indigeneity, the potential for the white settlers' belonging within the land. Though focusing on different historical periods, the former on first contact, the latter on the assimilation period, both of the novels adopted the strategy of becoming as a counter-narrative and subverted the dominant European discourses, accommodating the spiritual needs of a young Australian in its continual urge towards self-definition.' (123)