Post-Colonial Themes in David Maloufs Remembering Babylon Essay exampl

Post-Colonial Themes in David Malouf's Remembering Babylon It is interesting to note that, although in the context of this MA course we are studying Malouf's novel in terms of a post-colonial response, the author himself has expressed the opinion that it is not, strictly speaking, a post-colonial text. Most would agree with Malouf in that it is certainly not an example of resistance or response from a member of a colonised community in the same vein as, for example, Chinua Achebe or some Native Canadian authors. Rather, it can be seen as an examination of the colonial project by a descendant of the original colonisers. Nevertheless, there are several themes running through the novel which constitute elements of post-colonial discourse, and this page intends to briefly examine some of them. There is a pervasive sense of colonial guilt throughout Remembering Babylon, an awareness of the suspect morality of the colonial process. Like Great Expectations, Babylon recognises Australia as a potential utopia for the industrious European immigrant - unlike Dickens, however, Malouf asserts that the success of the project rests not on merely exploiting the resources available (while ignoring or displacing the indigenous people), but on reaching a kind of harmony and exchange with the landscape and with the colonised. This hybrid culture represents, for Malouf, the ideal ultimate outcome of the colonial process. The potential for this utopia is personalised in the crude shape of Gemmy Fairley, an English castaway who lives among aborigines for 16 years before crossing back into European civilisation, where his identity is immediately called into question. Gemmy is an 'in-between creature'(p.28), occupying an uncertain cultural spa... ...piphany, a realisation of harmony with nature which is very aboriginal in character. Viewed from a post-colonial perspective, Remembering Babylon is a pessimistic assessment of the colonial project, a lament for the missed opportunities which a meeting of disparate cultures could provide for humanity. Yes, there is a hopeful hint that the utopia is still somehow attainable, in the self-knowledge gained by Jock, Janet, Lachlan and Frazer. However Malouf, writing as he is in the last decade of the twentieth century, is aware that the colonial project has failed on these terms, and this realisation must inform any reading of the novel. NOTE: Much of the material used on this page is taken from a conversation with David Malouf in Dublin, 19 April 1997. NOTE: The page numbers referred to on this page are taken from the 1994 Vintage edition of Remembering Babylon.