Aborigine
- Explain the relevance of the Aborigine.
Botany Bay was originally only home to Aborigines. Childlike with little social skills and often-violent behaviour, they were forced to steal from the ships and forces that arrived at the colonies. When convicts escaped into the woods, it was not necessarily for freedom and escape from work but to seek the company of the aborigines.
‘The convicts often relied on the good will of the aborigines for their survival’
(Paul Carter, The Road to Botany Bay, An exploration of landscape and History, The university of Chicago press, Chicago, 1987)
Refer to significance of the aborigine in the play. In scene 4, the aborigine thinks over ‘Harry Brewer’s’ dream. This could sub consciously show how the aborigine provides a reassuring and knowing voice over the convicts as they are not too dissimilar groups; both fighting for their freedom (aborigines for their land back and convicts for their freedom from torture), both people of the night, they steal, are suddenly violent and speak a lower form of grammar.
- Discuss how the aborigine is forced to enter a place of ‘displacement’: at first he sees the sip and decides to leave it, to simply view from the sidelines.
‘This is a dream that has lost it’s way. Best leave it alone’
(pg 2, Act one, scene two)
At the end he finds himself with a different attitude to the settlers, as he finds himself contaminated with possibly smallpox.
‘Look: oozing pustules on my skin, heat on my forehead’
(pg 83, Act two, scene eleven)
Women
- Discuss ways officers look at women.
In the convict colonies there were few women, in 1820 there were fifteen males to every one female (Marjorie Bernard, A History of Australia, Angus and Roberston Publishers, Hong Kong, 1976). This meant that it was hard to establish an equal way to treat the convicts.
Major Ross emphasises the point of women being worthless and being forced into displacement. He verbally forces ‘Dabby’ to act like a dog:
‘Now wag your tail and bark, and I’ll throw u a biscuit’ (pg 64, Act two, scene five)
- Also the ‘otherness’ of power structures between the higher status males and lower status females. Maybe due to the large gap between males and females, women are seen as whores. A lower class group forced into a place of ‘displacement’ by constantly referred to as ‘wenches’, ‘filthy whore’ (Harry, pg 27,Act one, scene seven)
- Refer to ‘Shitty Meg’ ( Meg Long, pg10, Act one, scene 5), as a being of ‘otherness’ as she is not the stereotypical prostitute but an old and smelly being.
Intelligence of men.
- The Prologue written by Wisehammer
This helps to place the displacement of characters that are held back by situations out of their control. Phillip notes how
‘It is a matter of reminding the slave of what he knows, of hi own intellience….’ (Phillip pg 57) he says how with encouragement someone can be lifted from the place of ‘otherness and back into reality or into where they are meant to be. This is shown when Wisehammer writes the Prologue.
‘From Distant climes o’er wide-spread seas we come,
Though not with much éclat or beat of drum’ …(pg 89)
He wrote this intellectual piece of art even though he was not in a situation of support but in displacement.
Reference to other plays
- Outline the similarities to ‘otherness’ with Sarah Kane’s ‘Blasted’
Cate enters a place of ‘otherness’ when she faints;
‘Feels like I’m away for minutes or months sometimes, then I come back just where I was.’ (Sarah Kane, Blasted, Sarah Kane Complete plays, Methuen Drama, Methuen, 2001)
Same as Arscott when he reads the play
‘I don’t want to play myself. When I say Kites lines I forget everything else’ (Arscott pg 73)
This shows the leap into a place of ‘otherness’ a place free of torture, rid of the on going struggle for freedom.
- The similarity of women treated badly. (forced into displacement)
The account of the rape by the soldier in ‘Blasted’ shows similarity to the degradation of women.
Ian degrades Cate by continually asking her for sex or sexual favours:
‘make love to me’, ‘(I’ll) make love to you’, (Ian pg22)
Women treated as objects in both.
- Idea that women sell themselves for needs known to them.
In ‘Blasted’ Cate sells herself to the soldiers for salvation. In ‘Our Country’s Good’ the women sell themselves for food on the ships.
- The foreign soldier in ‘Blasted’, is from a place of ‘otherness’. This is a reference to the Jewish character Wisehammer.
Therefore ‘otherness’ can also be looked at as prejudice against nationality.
- Reference to Shakespeare’s works.
Also foreign characters prejudged on the basis of their nationality. (Shylock, Jewish, Merchant Of Venice)
Characters are sent to a place of displacement due to their colour or race. The similarity between Shakespeare’s character Othello (black) and Caesar (the black character in ‘Our Country’s Good)
Also Ironic that Caesar is named this as he is a low life black slave that is at first not allowed a part in the play and yet Julius Caesar is a Great Ruler from a Shakespearean play.
- Reference to Recruiting Officer
The speech written by Wisehammer in ‘Our Country’s Good’
‘From Distant climes o’er wide-spread seas we come,
Though not with much éclat or beat of drum’ … (Wisehammer, pg 89)
Resembles the final speech in George Farquhar’s, ‘The Recruiting officer’.
‘With some regret I quit the active field,
Where glory full reward to life does yield’…
(They both use Shakespeare’s Iambicpentamitre)
Comparison to modern T.V. and Film
- Bad Girls: Explain how the girls in the television programme suffer when their children are taken away. Their children mean everything to them. This shows how the women in Our Country’s Good are forced into a place of ‘otherness’ as they do not have children and although it seems stereotypical children are a big part of a woman’s life.
- Links to Great Expectations. Uses of references colonies in book but never seen. Reference to ‘otherness’ Mag Witch wants to make Pip into a gentleman and to be accepted into society. Similar to the story of Our Country’s Good, when Ralph Clark believes he can help Dabby to be accepted into society through his play.
