The lecture Part B helped me reflect on who gets to tell a people's story, and why. As mentioned, The Secret River sparked controversy for not including the perspective or words of native characters. I learned that this was especially evident during the stage adaptation of the book, where it became glaringly obvious that aboriginal people were not given a voice in their own story.
To be honest, I'm not sure if I think Grenville should have written dialogue from aboriginal characters. Like some in class mentioned, maybe the best route of action would have been for her to collaborate or even co-author with a writer of Aboriginal descent to authentically write those parts. Hearing the words of a character elevate their importance in a story and make it easier for the reader to empathize and understand their point of view. In a world where history is usually written by the victors, it seems dangerous for historical fiction to follow the same trend.
In her interview, Grenville appeared to be proud of herself for exposing her family's dark history instead of making excuses or covering it up. While she mostly presents her ancestors as the enemy, in profiting off of her story about them she becomes like a hero. The situation is in a grey area, where one asks if Grenville's storytelling is positive change or if it is simply benefitting from Aboriginal people's pain in a new form.
A common literary trope is the unreliable narrator, where the character narrating events has biases that affect what they do and do not say. Perhaps we need to read The Secret River as if it were written by an unreliable author, whose own ancestry and implicit biases affect the way Aboriginal perspectives are presented.
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