I wanted to share something that will be helping me to formulate my own responses to texts for our next assignment. It gave me a position that creatively stimulated my own critical analysis discourse....
Minmia (p.124) shares that, 'to fully understand and become intimate with something is to know its story.'
Using an analogy of Minmia's (p.124) lemon story...
she asks to enquire about:
'how did the lemon get here?' (the reader's position)
'How much is palatable?' (what type of positive lessons or insights have been gained by the text?)
How much is bitter?' (what leaves a 'bitter taste in my mouth, and why?)
'What about the tree?' (Understanding of Creation/knowledge, author's position)
Who planted the tree? (origin of theme, relationships)
'Who picked the lemon?' (readers' response to writing)
'Who cared for the tree?' (How has this knowledge or theme been maintained textually and sociologically?)
'How did the tree become strong?' (themes of resilience, resistance)
As Minmia declares: 'It's not just a lemon. It has a story. Everything has a story and everything has a teaching.'
The bracketed text is my own response to these questions for fine tuning my skills in textual analysis, these can be tailored to your own interpretations. Break it down.
I hope this even challenges your own notion of what 'a lemon' really means to you.
Ang
Reference:
Smith, M (Minmia) 2007, Under the Quandong Tree, Quandong Dreaming Publishing, Mogo, NSW.
End note:
In preparation for the major assignment, I will be exploring 3 themes that are emerging:
Self determination and resistance: in the context of Aboriginal writings' response to imposition of 'white ideologies' and the associated notion of hegemony.
Dispossession and Identity and the need to bring 'Unfinished business' to the fore.
Connection to Country, notably an over-arching theme which will connect everything together, an inseparable part of Aboriginal Law.
Ang
Ang says-
ReplyDeleteIn one of the video links, I would encourage you to listen to the spoken word of Richard Green, an Aboriginal Actor and poet. It is very apparent that Richard has a passion that exudes from his prose, his spoken word.
Also the poetic works of Lionel Fogarty is something that I am keen to explore more in the final assignment, it is pretty challenging but also very powerful, compelling the reader to just take in the narrative and to resist the need to make sense of it from our own reading position, to embrace the use of language as it is for the spirit of the narrative to work its magic.