The Boat People-Big Trial

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Is everyone an outsider? We have been looking the concept of outsiders but are we also outsiders? “Othello”, by William Shakespeare, explores the idea of an outsider from the very beginning of the play. Equally so, “The Boat People-Big Trial” is a short story written by Herb Wharton and follows the concept of outsiders as it is about the Europeans coming to Australia and misjudging the Aboriginals again. The quote written by Meshell Ndegeocello “any ideas of ‘other’ are complicated, and otherness is relative to personal ideas of ‘normal’”, shows that to certain people ‘other’ can be totally different and non-conforming whereas to another group of people ‘otherness ‘ may be normal for them. People often get portrayed differently because of personal opinions and as a result derogatory and demeaning terms may be used. Therefore everyone is an outsider even though they may not know it. Both successfully explore the context of otherness as it relates to outsiders.

Throughout the first act, a choice of disapproving and select terms are used to describe Othello by a number of different characters. Referred to as “he” and “him” by …show more content…

He plays on different characters and their emotions towards Othello, as well as descriptions afforded Othello to assist in the depiction of the man as an outsider. Alternatively the “boat people” explores the difference from how the aboriginals were outsiders and were treated unjustly and now the boat people, may not be in the same situation, are outsiders in their own way as they are “fleeing” their own country. The text explores the concept of outsiders as the aboriginals we still treated as outcasts even though the boat people were the foreigners. It is a satire as it idealizes the Europeans attitudes that aboriginals were outsiders. The thought for being normal and being an outsider depends on peoples personal

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