The Secret River By Kate Grenville - 1231 Words

The Secret River is written by Kate Grenville, an internationally well-known author. It’s also her most influential magnum opus. Kate Grenville said, her mother’s grandfather was a poor man from London and sentenced to be sent to Australia because of stealing timbers in the early nineteenth century. After arriving to Sidney, he thought presumingly that he finally had his own land. The thing makes Grenville curious is that the land was supposed to belong to aboriginal people but how her grandfather could make a living on this land. It’s important for her to know about if her grandfather dealt with this problem by gun or even gave the exchange to aboriginal people. Therefore, she did a lot of historical researches and wrote novel The Secret River eventually. This is a story about family and Australia. It’s also a story about more than a family that narrates a complicated relationship between Australia’s aboriginal people and white colonists. It happened in the early nineteenth century in England and Australia. William Thornhill, the hero came from a family of little money and suffered from hunger and cold since childhood. Afterwards, Thornhill was apprenticed to Sal’s father and became a capable boatman on the river of Thames, also got married with Sal. However, after Sal’s parents died one after the other, their living got more and more poverty-stricken so that Thornhill had to make a living by stealing. Once during the action, they were being found and his brother wasShow MoreRelatedThe Secret River By Kate Grenville1267 Words   |  6 PagesAttaining an honest and genuine level of self-awareness and knowledge in any walk of life is not a feat easily achieved. In Kate Grenville’s novel The Secret Riv er we see William Thornhill endeavouring to come to grips with his environment and social standing. Subsequently in F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald’s titular hero’s internal struggle with persona and ambition; prevent him from realizing such a victory. William Thornhill’s world begins in a Dickensian London, and is thenRead MoreMysteries of Austrailia in The Secret River by Kate Grenville604 Words   |  2 PagesWhat secrets of history dwell rooted in the emotional depths of the muddled Australian river? Kate Grenville, an Australian author delves into the conflicts, encounters and relations between the Indigenous Australians and the European settlers within her novel ‘The Secret River’. The Secret River is part of a trilogy, published in 2005 and is a piece of historical fiction set upon the colonisation of Australia. Grenville uncovers a perspective on the bloody and fierce events that have been lost toRead MoreThe Secret River By Kate Grenville And William Shakespeare1467 Words   |  6 PagesHow has the Kate Grenville and William Shakespeare used compositional features to express both similar and different ideas of difference and power? The Secret River, set in England and Australia, was written by Kate Grenville in 2006. William Shakespeare’s play Othello was written in 1603 and set in Venice. Kate Grenville and William Shakespeare used compositional features to express both similar and different ideas of difference and power. They have cohesive ideas of power such as the use of structureRead MoreEssay on The Secret River1141 Words   |  5 PagesThe Secret River Essay Characters in the text The Secret River by Kate Grenville represent a variation of attitudes and views towards the colonisation of Australia and the Aboriginal Australians. While many characters are indecisive about their opinion on the natives, some characters have a clear mind-set on how they are to be treated. The characters of Thomas Blackwood and Smasher Sullivan represent the two very different sides of the moral scale, and the other characters fit between these sidesRead MoreSecret River1665 Words   |  7 PagesShaira Sanchez 05/09/12 Shaira Sanchez 05/09/12 The Secret River by Kate Grenville Essay Explain the way that narrative devices have been employed by an author to construct a representation of people or places in at least one text that you have studied. You must make specific reference to â€Å"The Secret River.† One of Australia’s finest writers Kate Grenville wrote The Secret River which challenges traditional gender roles of women in the early nineteenth century London and Australia.Read MoreCritical Analysis Of The Secret River1703 Words   |  7 Pagesevaluate how (language features) and why (contexts) different interpretations are represented in the study text and how those has enhanced your interpretations of the text. The Secret River (2013) a play adapted by Andrew Bovell from the book of the same title by Kate Granville, is set in colonial Australia along the Hawkesbury River. It focuses on the Thornhill Family, an English family recently transported to Australia and the Dhurag people, an Aboriginal family already living on the land. The purposeRead MoreHow Does Kate Grenville’s Novel, the Secret River, Complicate Simplistic Views of the Colonial Situation?2759 Words   |  12 PagesHow does Kate Grenville’s novel, The Secret River, complicate simplistic views of the colonial situation? To some extent the past generations have been reared on a patriotic view of past Australian history, interpreting its history as largely a success. Since history is determined by the perspective of from which it is written, this version of Australian history, the Three Cheers view, was written from the perspective of white working-class males, who consider Australian pioneers to be the simpleRead MoreLiterary Analysis of Kate Grenvilles The Secret River Essay845 Words   |  4 PagesKate Grenville is one of Australia’s best known authors, she was born in 1950 in Sidney, Australia. She has won many national and international awards for her writing about Australia’s past and the interactions that may have been taking place between the first settlers and the aborigines. The Secret River was one of these popular novels, which is exploring the past, although it is only historical fiction. The inspiration for writing these historical fictions, came from the fact that she di d not knewRead MoreEssay about Causes and Consequences of Conflict1136 Words   |  5 PagesEncountering Conflict - Secret river A conflicts importance lies not in its causes but in its consequences. In todays rising society, where we experience people willing to strive to their maximum potential by any means necessary, it becomes blatantly obvious to why we often overlook the implications we inflict on others. We are sometimes aware of our actions, acting in spite or in fear, and sometimes ignorant to the situation, unaware of the consequences we deliver. The question is howeverRead MoreThe Secret River Essay1157 Words   |  5 PagesThe Secret River In ‘The Secret River’ by Kate Grenville. Kate explores the tale of the founding of Australia from the view of a poor waterman William Thornhill. From a very poor background, growing up in the South End of London, Thornhill lived through the death of his parents then with the responsibility to care for the other five siblings, he undertook various jobs. Thornhill was lucky enough to get an apprenticeship by Mr.Middleton. Soon enough business went bad as Mr.Middleton’s wife became