Women in ‘Neighbours’ and ‘Stolen Car’ are marginalised. In ‘Neighbours’ it is the Macedonian women (through their beliefs and attitudes of their culture) whom are marginalised, with men butchering and women plucking, this is the common sight of some traditional values, men out killing, and the women preparing the food.
In Stolen Car it is the young women who are marginalised. Wallaby is driving a stolen car and Jody feels uncomfortable in the car, at the speed it is going at, and the reply ‘You shut up, ya stupid bitch. I’m a good driver.’ Although Jody is correct in saying so, the male authority figure is better in staying in control.
There are two main themes in Stolen Car-which are 1)Johnny and his inner conflict and 2)Johnny against the other characters in the fiction text
The main character of ‘Stolen Car’ is Johnny Moydan. In the first paragraph Johnny’s character is described. 18 years of age, thin, dark as an old snag, has blonde curly hair (a gift from the sun), his yellow eyes full of golden laughter, and they are the first things that people notice about him. He is gentle, but wild with interest and is searching for his restless spirit. Johnny had travelled to the city (Perth) to grow as a human being, but found that he was out of place. In the unknown city Johnny follows Benny Wallah (Wallaby) a dark faced (minus a tooth) male, with a nasal voice who shows Johnny the lows of the city. Although Johnny goes along with Wallaby and his pranks, he is very shy and confused, afraid of the city, images that almost remind him of hell. ‘a little afraid in the dead place that seems so alive’. When Johnny is picked up by the police he is ‘…miserable, confused’ and is frightened by the madness and the power that the two white police men hold, and is paralysed by this supremacy. ‘Poor Johnny. Confused, terribly alone. Peaceful, gentle Johnny,…’, Johnny ‘…becomes a loose, ragged spineless, wreck.’. Johnny refers to the authority figure, the police as ‘…boss…’ and he has known since birth to ‘keep a shutter always between himself and the Whitman.’. ‘Shiver with shock, exhaustion and the reality of it all’ ‘He had always been a “good boy” ’.His dash with the police and the city had not been a blissful experience. ‘Restless, uneasy and bitter like the city that had adopted him’. Johnny and his new connection that he has with the unforgiving city. He had turned into one of them-just like Wallaby.
The one thing that the other aboriginal people did not like was that unlike them Johnny was ready to stand up for his rights, he believed in a world that all people were to be treated with respect, but the city and its people had other ideas to break this poor boys soul. ‘Other aboriginals frightened of him. He is different.’. When Johnny steals the upper-class, respectable mans property (his car), he feels power. ‘…power he controls.’, now for the first time in the city, the city that torn him in two, had granted Johnny with his power and his freedom.
The second character to be introduced into the story ‘Stolen Car’ is Benny Wallah (wallaby). He has a dark face (minus a tooth), has a nasal voice and disrespects whites. ‘Them white bastards too good for us’. While on the way into the city with Johnny, wallaby brags about his women and the many breaks he has done although he is only a face, an act that he puts on, ‘I was watchin’ ya from behind a tree. Then demons flashed their torches at me, but they never seen me, look. I ’ad one big piece of pipe there. I’d ‘ave given it to them monyach bastards too’ he growled.’. Wallaby uses and speaks about and to his women as though they were merely possession, toys for him to play with, to thrash against a wall and to throw away when he was finished. ‘see if me women’s there’ ‘plenty of women ‘ere for ya’ ‘ You shut up you stupid bitch.’.
The police in the story stolen Car are represented as the authority figures in the fiction text. They hold power with in the Aboriginal society. They create unneeded havoc and are merely a ‘pack of hungry dogs’, predators to the Aboriginals. They are big, cold eyed and stride the streets looking for trouble. They push the stray people around and are known as the ‘demons’ and call them selves the demons to generate fear in the eyes of the powerless. The police in the story are very judgmental in choosing their prey, and in the case of this story, it is Johnny. ‘The two men stare at the youth, hungrily, with their not quite human eyes.’.
The sergeant is a middle aged thin man with hair that is greyish in colour, which is curly. He has a hard, lean, bony face and a slit for a mouth, which he is only able to speak in short, hissy language that is forceful. The sergeant uses his status to compel the youth (Johnny) to give in. ‘You little black bastard’.
The styles of Neighbours and Stolen Car are not all that different. Stolen Car deals with the present tense (the here and now of Johnny) and past tense (the culture in which he strives for). This style allows the reader to dwindle into the life that Johnny wants to create for himself but also shows the path in which he has fallen upon. The language used is very informal when used in dialogue but in action is very complex and imaginative. The dialogue is spoken in slang to help create the mood of Aboriginals and their language that is similar to white Australians. The language is figurative end evokes the reader to use stereotypes of images to portray the story the bets way possible. The word choice in the short story uses many different colours for description to evoke desires for the reader and animals to cerate a connection between animalistic behaviours that is similar to what humans have. The point of view of this story is from Johnny Moydan’s perspective and is in third person, which allows for the settings to be well placed and described but does not allow the reader to became as emotionally involved, like when a story is written in first person point of view. This also does not create a sense of surrealism and the reader is not so actively involved.
Neighbours, differing form Stolen Car has no dialogue, and is solely based on the actions and settings of the characters and is based upon language that is formal and figurative. Similar to Stolen Car, Neighbours deals with colours to evoke passions and desires. The text is less descriptive compared to Stolen Car but has just enough description for the reader the reader to convey their own thoughts and stereotypes for their own imagery.
Stolen Car’s images of the settings are not found in the dialogue. The description is described in text where action is laid and the time is set. The first main setting portrayed that brings significance to the values and attitudes of the story when Johnny is standing under the ‘…grotesquely ugly, yet beautiful old red gum’, trying to thumb a ride. This setting introduces the character to be out of place with the cities surroundings of industrialisation. ‘But the Tree and he are the same, out of place in this brick and bitumen world.’. After receiving a lift the scene is moved to the entering of the city. ‘…bowling along the grey intestine leading into the bulging stomach of the city.’. Here the words ‘…bowling along…’ refer to being delivered into the city, rapidly, yet smoothly. ‘…grey intestine…’ brings an image of darkness and uncertainness along a long and winding trip. ‘…leading into the bulging stomach of the city.’ Referring to the entering of the stomach/city that is already so densely populated with people. It seems that right from the beginning of the story that Johnny is uncomfortable with his new surrounding to find out his true spirit, where he belongs. This is portrayed when Johnny experiences the throbbing nightclub. A place that is out of place in his beliefs. Coming to the city was to find him self and yet he only found places of hell, and his only friend, the only thing that was comforting him, had left, the sun. ‘The sun, his sun, has quite gone now, and he is cold and a little afraid of this dead place that seems so alive.’ Stolen Car uses the settings of contemporary times, but continuously refers back to the key roots of Johnny’s history. This shows the true values and attitudes that Johnny is. The core reason to coming to the city was to find himself and to visit his beliefs as an aboriginal of the twentieth century. ‘Where is the soil that spawned their ancestors? Only bitumen and cement here now.’ Johnny is asking him self what is the purpose of these people, what contribution do they make, they have no real identity. ‘They are like the leaves of yesterday’s yellowed newspaper, with yesterday’s news, whirling aimlessly in the dirty streets.’
Neighbours settings on the other hand are not so descriptive and use much less literary tools such as similes and metaphors, compared to Stolen Car, which any sentence that has a description of a setting is drowned in comparisons of any type. The first setting that is relevant to the specific values and attitudes is the expensive outer suburbs. The scene is very quickly dealt with and only is an insight to the lives of young couple, in comparison to where they are living now. The setting shows the reader the way in which the couple lived and the changes that they must make to adapt to their new surroundings. ‘…expensive outer suburbs where good neighbours were seldom never seen never heard’. The fence plays an important scene for the neighbours of the couple. Here the young newly-weds learn to become accustomed to their new lifestyle of ‘in-your face’ from their neighbours. This setting lays the foundations which the plays an important role where the neighbours exchange values and attitudes that they display as life skills.
Stolen Car and Neighbours both posses strong beliefs in values and attitudes towards characters, settings and themes. The two authors Archie Weller (Stolen Car) and Tim Winton (neighbours) are from two very different backgrounds but share a common link of expressing the importance and opinions of characters. This has been through dialogue and action in communicating to the reader of specific values and attitudes in which the culture of the text was produced in.
Culture differences.doc /