The White Earth

Discuss the writer's use of narrative conventions to explore ideas in this passage. Use samples and notes from class to inform your writing.

Ever since the settlement of the British in Australia, the environment and indigenous culture became a thing of the past, consumerism took the forefront over spiritual connection to the land and Its history, mans sole concern was to 'develop' the land by turning the trees into houses, no matter the ramifications of his actions. Andrew McGahan's, The White Earth explores ideas of the destruction of the environment as a result of white settlement in Australia, and how this has impacted man's spiritual connection to the land. Such ideas are conveyed through the use of language, juxtaposition and point of view.
Many language techniques are utilised throughout this text in order to express ideas about the beauty of nature and how this beauty is being destroyed through the careless acts of man. The use of symbolism implies a much broader and deeper meaning to the words chosen by the author, for example when Mcgahan writes, “There were only these notches hewn in the tree trunks, slowly disappearing.” He intends for a much broader interpretation of the disappearance of footholds in the trees; he is commenting on the slow disappearance of the Aboriginal culture through the use of symbolism. Another way in which McGahan employs language techniques in order to explore ideas is through the use of personification; the author brings the environment to life through personification as a means to provoke sympathy from the reader. “Bizarrely shaped fungi, feeding off the rotting limbs of fallen trees.” This grim expression transforms a seemingly inanimate tree into something that is living and human like, he does so again when he writes, “the raw crimson of split and bleeding wood” wood does not bleed, this is a human-like