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Victim

‘Victim’ by Oliver Smithfield, was a text set around the time of the removal of Gough Whitlam, by the Governor General in 1975. This event reflects the stories theme ‘authority versus freedom’ as Gough Whitlam was ‘sacked’ for wanting an independent Australia, free from British authority. The question of whether authority or freedom was the better option was the contentious issue that remained on the minds of Australians during the mid 70’s and was certainly an issue reflected by the stories moral.

The short story ‘Victim’ by Oliver Smithfield uses a range of narrative techniques to convey its themes. These include naming, brief descriptions, setting and highly selective use of language and point of view. The naming used to describe characters is simple but carefully selected in order to evoke particular responses; by using shortened names such as ‘Mickey’ instead of the more established ‘Michael’ (in combination with the references to paleness, thin and white skin) the reader is encouraged to stereotype the character as a weakling, and therefore of less importance (due to the lack of description). Via this narrative convention ‘Mickey’ is stereotyped as ‘vulnerable’ which is a lead on to one of the main themes of the story; ‘vulnerability’ and ‘who is victim to whom’.

The physical setting also helps to give meaning to the dominant themes of the story by emphasizing the separation between the ‘neat school buildings’ and ‘the bush’ and imposed authority from free will. The bush and the buildings are two separate worlds and symbolise the contrast between order and disorder. Without the imposed order by Mr. Curtis things start to break down and the mistreatment of animals and each other starts to become evident.

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