#Sub-“telegramming” – The role of gossip and technology in “We of the Never-Never”
Today social media is one of the main outlets that people communicate and look for information. Many people “like”, “pin”, “retweet”, and more to express their satisfaction or disapproval regarding the happenings of the world and their personal worlds. On Twitter, sub-tweeting, or writing a post about someone indirectly, has been made a method of gossip and has caused much discord between individuals. While reading Jeannie Gunn’s autobiographical account, We of the Never-Never, I could not help but notice how the telegram served a major role in communication and the social climate of the text. The text often exposed the private messages that were under the surface.
While telegrams would not have been a new invention, the telegram was created in the 1800s, when Jeannie Gunn wrote this account of her experiences in the early 1900s, as being one of the first white women in her part of the Bush, telegrams were vital to the success of colonization in the harsh conditions of an unknown land as revealed in the text. Some questions that I will attempt to answer are what roles did the telegram play in the development of Australia, particularly the role that the telegram had in the novel. Secondly, I would like to analyze the role that gossip played in Gunn’s fashioning and portrayal of herself in the novel. Thirdly, I would also like to analyze the female gaze on the telegram transcripts. As far as I have read, the telegram transcripts were mostly a male space for gossip, imagined female fragility, chivalry, innuendos, etc. One of the major dilemmas that I will face in this research project is finding sources. There has been little scholarship on this text and a little more scholarship on the impact of telegrams in Australia. For primary sources, I hope to find telegram transcripts from colonist living in Australia, particularly any related to the book. Any diaries from Jeannie Gunn, or other women in her position, would be helpful. Additionally, I would like to find secondary sources relating to Jeannie Gunn’s life and most importantly the history of telegraphy as it existed in England and its impact on the development of Australia. I am also interested in the linguistic work surrounding gossip and the connections that linguists are working on sub-tweeting and shade throwing and relating it to We of the Never-Never.
In the article “ I Tweet, Therefore I Am” (2010), Peggy Orenstein explains that social media such as twitter can express who you are as a person and make you come to the realization of how your life is defined. Orenstein supports this explanation by giving her own personal experience on her twitter experiment. The author’s purpose is to point out that not all people who are hooked to social media have lost the disconnection of feelings along with relationships between people. Orenstein writes in a reflective tone for students and adults.
Simon Wiesenthal’s book The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness spoke to me about the question of forgiveness and repentance. Simon Wiesenthal was a Holocaust prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. He experienced many brutal and uneasy experiences that no human being should experience in their lifetime and bear to live with it. Death, suffering, and despair were common to Simon Wiesenthal that he questioned his own religious faith because he asks why would his God allow the Holocaust happen to his people to be slaughter and not do anything to save them. During Simon Wiesenthal time as a Jewish Holocaust, Simon was invited to a military hospital where a dying Nazi SS officer wanted to have a conversation. The Nazi SS officer told Simon his story of his life and confesses to Simon of his horrific war crimes. Ultimately, the SS officer wanted forgiveness for what he done to Simon’s Jewish people. Simon Wiesenthal could not respond to his request, because he did not know what to do with a war criminal that participate in mass genocide to Simon’s people. Simon Wiesenthal lives throughout his life on asking the same crucial question, “What would I have done?” (Wiesenthal 98). If the readers would be on the exact situation as Simon was
“Nothing is perfect.” Though social media brings us uncountable convenience, there is a trade-off with the convenience. Due to the advanced technology we have, social media has become part of our life, which it means that social media could determine our sociability. In Peggy Orenstein’s “I Tweet, Therefore I Am,” though she praises Tweeter for its convenience, at the same time, she also worries that “(Tweeter) makes the greasepaint permanent, blurring the lines not only between public and private but also between the authentic and contrived self.” Since we don’t care about who we talk to, we might act abnormally due to our feelings, and
While social media can be an exceptional tool for connecting with others and gaining valuable information, it also can be easily transformed into a playground for senseless arguments and cyberbullying. Just as Abigail Williams used elaborate accusations towards innocent people for her benefit, people engage in plenty of finger-pointing and fear-mongering daily. The shame and fear generated by this is not far from the craze of McCarthyism from half a century ago. Furthermore, social media can be a catalyst for the destruction of privacy: there is no limit to how much one can share. Everyone in “The Crucible” has inner humiliations that haunt their minds, from John Proctor’s adultery to Reverend Hale’s inner moral conflict towards Salem’s trials. Today, with one click, these personal demons can easily be set free.
Have you ever judge a book by the cover or made a bad first impression without getting to know the person first? Human beings need to come to the realization that everyone come from different walks of paths. We need to stop labeling people as "the other." No-Name Woman, Kingston 's aunt experienced Edward Said 's concept through the people in her village by them looking at her situation through a one-sided lens. The village that Kington 's family lived in had a preconceive notion on what the people should behave like and adultery was like a sin and a crime no matter of the circumstances.
Picard, A. P. (2011, March 20). The History of Twitter, 140 Characters At A Time. Retrieved from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/digital-culture/social-web/the-history-of-twitter-140-characters-at-a-time/article573416/
Levy, Ariel. “Trial by Twitter.” The New Yorker 89.23 (2013): 38-49. Ebsco Host. Web. 15 Apr.
Orenstein, Peggy. “I Tweet, Therefore I Am.” What Matters In America. Third Edition.Gary Goshgarian and Kathryn Goodfellow. New Jersey: Pearson, 2012. 40-43. Print.
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Social media, however, is the future of communication. It is a relatively new form of media and it makes the transfer of photos, audio, video, text and information increasingly fluid among internet users. Today we have platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram where people can share as much or as little personal information as they desire with other members of the communities. The result of this is an
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For many, the preferred mode of conversation today is through texting. Sherry Turkle explores this topic in her excerpt “The Flight from Conversation”. She uses paradoxes and pathos to prove we live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating, yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection.
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