Power relationships are represented in different ways in various texts dependent on the historical era from which the text is produced. Jasper Jones is a coming-of-age novel written by Australian writer, Craig Silvey in 2009. It follows the life of Charlie Bucktin, a thirteen year old resident of Corrigan, a rural mining town in Western Australia as he matures into adulthood. In order to protect Jasper Jones, the town’s ‘troublemaker’, he helps Jasper to dispose the dead body of Laura Wishart, the missing daughter of the shire president and struggles to keep this dreadful secret. Power relationships in this novel have been reflected, reinforced and challenged in their own context and my personal context through various narrative conventions. Racial power has been reflected in the text through the context in which the text is set. Sexual power has been reinforced in the contemporary context. Furthermore, in both the text’s context and my context, the idea of political power has been challenged. In Jasper Jones, racial power has been reflected through the representation of certain groups and individuals of the 1960s and the conflicts that occurred. At the time in which the text was set being the 1960s, racial prejudice was evident in Australia, especially in rural areas that maintained a parochial and xenophobic society. Aboriginal people were not recognised as citizens of Australia and in some cases, not even as people. They were mistreated and typically seen as uneducated drunkards and criminals. Offspring of white colonists and Aboriginal people were regarded as ‘half-caste’ and were also not acknowledged as Australians. In the same context, there was a growing hatred and resentment towards Vietnamese immigrants due to the impac... ... middle of paper ... ... the traditional views about people with political power and their expected behaviours as they were morally corrupted and abusive of their powers. Power relationships in Craig Silvey’s Jasper Jones have been represented in various ways in the text’s and my own context. Through the representation of the Lus and Jasper Jones, racial power has been reflected in the context of the text being the 1960s. In the contemporary context, sexual power has been further reinforced through the point of view of Charlie and the death of Laura Wishart in the plot. Political power has been challenged in my current context as well as in the text’s context through the characterisation of Pete Wishart and the Sarge. Together with the changing society, power relationships are also changing and thus, over time there certainly will be changes to who hold the power in these relationships.
...usion that race is deployed "in the construction of power relations."* Indeed a "metalanguage" of race, to use Higginbotham's term, was employed by colonial powers to define black women as separate from English women, and that process is deconstructed in Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, Anxious Patriarchs. However, Brown's analysis rests mainly on the shifting English concepts of gender and race imposed on colonial society by the white elite, becoming at times a metalanguage of colonial gender. Nonetheless, Brown's analysis of overlapping social constructions is instructive for understanding the ways gender and race can be manipulated to buttress dominant hierarchies.
“The Passing of Grandison” debunks the stereotypical image of a slave in the 19th Century. The author Charles Chesnutt uses his personal background and ability to pass himself as a white man to tell a very compelling story. Grandison was more than an uneducated farm hand doing his masters bidding. “The Passing of Grandison” provides evidence that while the society of the time thought of slaves as nothing more than property to be bought and abused, slaves could be much more than what was on the surface. In Chesnutt’s “The Passing of Grandison” Grandison is a plantation slave in the early 19th Century who through his actions eventaully escapes and aquires his own freedom as well as that of several family members. Most people have been in a situation where they wish they could outsmart or outwit another. Whether it is a peer or a higher-up, many wish they had the ability or courage to get the better of others. Is it possible for a subordinate to really fool their superior and eventually gain what they really wanted in the end? This is accomplished through the actions of an trickster figure. A trickster is a character in literature who attempts to outwit and outmaneuver his or her adversaries. The trickster uses whatever means necessary to reach whatever goals they might desire. , Trudier Harris states, “tricksters achieve their objectives through indirection and mask-wearing, through playing upon the gullibility of their opponents” (Harris, 1). In “The Passing of Grandison”, Chesnutt uses a trickster figure to achieve that one-ups-man ship and plot twists while providing social commentary to present part of his own belief system as it relates to the treatment of slaves in the 19th century. Two characters in “The Passing of Grandis...
Power, the perception of superiority over another human, is the source of many conflicts between people. Feeling inferior causes people to act beyond their normal personality. John Knowles strongly demonstrates this point in his work, A Separate Peace. In the relationship between Finny and Gene, Gene sets himself up to be inferior in the balance of power which motivates him to act irrationally to take power back from Finny.
Racism and segregation is a strong recurring theme in the novel Jasper Jones (Silvey 2009). Jasper jones is set in the small remote town of Corrigan in Western Australia during the 1960s. The novel follows the story of Charlie Bucktin, who is the main protagonist. Throughout the novel we see how Charlie develops and “comes of age” as well as see him break new barriers and make new friends. On one fateful night, Charlie meets Jasper Jones. Jasper is a half-caste aboriginal boy who is seen as a nuisance and a troublemaker to the community of Corrigan. Charlie’s best friend Jeffrey is a Vietnamese boy with a strong interest in cricket, however due to the Vietnamese war with Australia at the time he is subject to racism
8) Through analytical narration, Dana’s commentary shines light on the role of power in corrupting its hosts. Back to nineteenth century Maryland, Dana lands in the middle of a southern field, and witnesses a fight between Rufus and Isaac, the slave husband of Rufus’s childhood best friend and free woman, Alice. Evidently spurred from Rufus’s attempt to rape Alice, the two ferociously brawled it out much to the dismay of by standing Alice. As she conversed with Alice, she wondered, “If Rufus could turn so quickly on a life-long friend, how long would it take him to turn on me?” Despite Rufus’s attempt of rape, he truly loved Alice and only violated her because it was his only way to obtain her. Dana had already recognized this, but did
In conclusion, the films and novel named above reveal the three unlikely elements that fuse to illustrate the advancement of power. As rank, pride and gender inequality become significant power increases and elevates the person holding that power. Though many crave power, few know how to maintain it with these same elements.
Many people who have power and authority have the ability to have a strong influence over the behavior of others. They show great dominance over them, and have a lot of say in their actions. And many characters demonstrate this in John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men. The novel stresses us to view the advantage power has in its characters’ actions and
From the displays of power that have been shown through out this essay, we see that this story is a story about power. Power is the story is primarily about peoples need for some small amount of power to survive in life and to feel that hey have a purpose within their society which every society it may be whether its is Gilead or Nazi Germany or modern day Britain.
The Oxford University Dictionary defines the word power as ‘authority or control’ over an individual and knowledge as ‘the sum of what is known’. In Angela Carter’s story The Bloody Chamber (1979) knowledge and power correlate with each other. The more information a character possesses the greater authority they have. In The Bloody Chamber Carter utilises a variety of literary techniques to express the importance of knowledge and power in the plot. This essay will analyse the way Carter applies these literary techniques to the story to express the importance of knowledge and power.
Within Australia, beginning from approximately the time of European settlement to late 1969, the Aboriginal population of Australia experienced the detrimental effects of the stolen generation. A majority of the abducted children were ’half-castes’, in which they had one white parent and the other of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent. Following the government policies, the European police and government continued the assimilation of Aboriginal children into ‘white’ society. Oblivious to the destruction and devastation they were causing, the British had believed that they were doing this for “their [Aborigines] own good”, that they were “protecting” them as their families and culture were deemed unfit to raise them. These beliefs caused ...
Marion Jones was first invited to participate in the 1992 Olympic trials upon her performances in high school but she declined the invitation. After winning further statewide sprint titles, she accepted a full scholarship to the University of North Carolina in basketball, where she helped the team win the NCAA championship in her freshman year. Jones hung up her basketball jersey in 1996 to concentrate on track. Jones, however, lost her spot on the 1996 Olympic team because of an injury. At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Jones finished with three gold medals and two bronze medals.
As shown in literature, corruption and the abuse of power is an ongoing discussion. When it comes down to the point where people are being used and abused physically and psychologically, it creates a hostile environment for both the subjects and the abuser. As represented in the two similar texts Lord Of the Flies and “I Only Came to use the Phone”, corrupted authority and abuse of power usually end up leading to the collapse of a society or a world of chaos and violence.
Power is apparent in every society all across the world whether it be the teacher in your classroom or the head of your country. Many political figureheads abuse their power by through their authority and social status. A fictional example of an abuser with high political authority would be King Creon from “Antigone”, a play written by Sophocles. A modern example would be the dictator Kim Jong Un of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Not unlike Ian Mcewan's Saturday, the protagonists in Patchett's Bel Canto face an act of violence that is triggered by a perceived injustice. In my essay, I will explore the shifts in power among the characters and the reason why I think Rosetta Coss and Gen play key roles in the unrelenting tides of events and reactions to the constantly changing circumstances the story goes through.
Athol Fugard’s “‘Master Harold’ . . . and the boys” illustrates that power is an issue that has so many people playing a part. Hally’s relatively short visit to his parent’s shop reveals so many problems within society in South Africa and around the world that still exist today. Everything from the interactions between the characters, to the title of the play, and even their choices of conversation all show that the thing about power struggles is that everyone ends up damaged. Fugard presents several brief displays of the power struggles that affect each character and in turn exposes to the reader that many forms of power are integrated into society so invisibly that we rarely see such struggles, and they are so much more than a black and white issue.