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The Myth of Certainty and the Matrix of Uncertainty: Five Contemporary Australian Novels Confront History

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The Myth of Certainty and the Matrix of Uncertainty: Five Contemporary Australian Novels Confront History The Myth of Certainty and the Matrix of Uncertainty: Five Contemporary Australian Novels Confront History by Charles Scott Nesbitt A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Auburn University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Auburn, Alabama August 7, 2021 Keywords: Historiographic Metafiction, British Literature, Contemporary British and Antipodean Novels, Australia, Postmodernism, Postcolonialism Copyright 2021 by Charles Scott Nesbitt Approved by Dr. Jon Bolton, Chair, Department of English Dr. Alicia Carroll, Department of English Dr. Ernest L. Gibson III, Department of English Dr. Chris Keirstead, Department of English Dr. Rupali Mishra, Department of History Abstract The intersection of postcolonialism and historiographic metafiction can be seen in novels written over the last several decades by British and Antipodean authors concerning the British colonial era in Australia and its aftermath. Novels from this sub-group of writers of historiographic metafiction fit both Linda Hutcheon’s description of historiographic metafiction and some of the concerns of postcolonial writers and theorists, as they revisit the colonial era and critique or reassess the historiographic writings that helped galvanize pro-colonial perspectives and marginalize and dehumanize the Indigenous communities there. While there is much scholarship on historiographic metafiction and postcolonialism, this volume focuses on the specific nexus of those two concepts and its coalescence in contemporary Australian novels of the colonial and postcolonial experience. The novels covered in this volume—by Peter Carey, Matthew Kneale, Rachel Leary, Richard Flanagan, and Alexis Wright—share an interest in 19th Century Australia, the violence and injustice that were an inescapable part of the foundation of the country during that period, and the potential dubiousness of historical documentation. The self-reflexivity, magical realism, intertextuality, and other elements of historiographic metafiction in these novels force a reckoning with the textualization of history and illustrate the epistemological effects of official documentation and widely accepted or mythologized historical accounts and the way such writings create understandings of events and historical figures that can shape beliefs and ideologies for centuries. 2 Acknowledgments Many thanks to my dissertation chair, Dr. Jon Bolton, for his guidance, encouragement, and patience; to the other members of my committee, Dr. Alicia Carroll, Dr. Ernest L. Gibson III, Dr. Chris Keirstead, and Dr. Rupali Mishra, for their time, expertise, and feedback; to my wife, Karen, for all of her support, belief, and help; and to my mother, Sandra, and the rest of my family for believing in me and for decades of helping me reach this point. 3 Table of Contents Introduction: The Myth of Certainty ............................................................................................... 5 Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang: Truth in Lies ....................................................... 22 Avenging History: Richard Flanagan’s Use of Magical Realism, Intertextuality, and a Fish Called Gould to De-Silence the Sarah Island Prison .................................................................... 53 Bridget Crack: Cracks in History ................................................................................................. 83 Nothing is Certain, Unless Publication Makes It So: Intertextuality, Parody, and Polyphony in Matthew Kneale’s English Passengers ....................................................................................... 109 “Our Country is a Very Big Story”: The Present is the Past in Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria .. 141 Conclusion: The Matrix of Uncertainty ...................................................................................... 168 Works Cited ................................................................................................................................ 181 4 Introduction: The Myth of Certainty “What history is changes with time and place.” – Michel-Rolph Trouillot, 1995 (25) Despite the authority history and historical documentation have been afforded over the centuries, despite the confidence with which historians tell their tales and readers receive them, despite the seemingly unscalable mountain of absolutism and conviction with which historiographers may preload their explorations of the past, historical certainty is a myth. This myth of certainty is compounded by the matrix of uncertainty one finds when researching and assessing the past—a web of differing perspectives, contradictory accounts, official documentation of questionable veracity, revisions, omissions, imprecisions, and, sometimes, collisions of fact and fiction. In fact, historiographers write with the same tools as writers of fiction, and they can include, exclude, emphasize, or de-emphasize material to create an effect or advocate a viewpoint. In some cases, it’s not a stretch to say that historiography is propaganda, a lie told by those in a position to tell it. 1 Even with the most objective and benevolent intentions, though, history is fluid, revisions are frequently necessary, perspectives shift, and, as the Trouillot quotation in the epigraph above suggests, what may be considered true history in one place may be considered a lie somewhere else. History, then, no longer has the authority it once had—and still claims to have. Writers of historiographic metafiction are acutely aware of this. British authors such as Salman Rushdie, Julian Barnes, and Jeanette Winterson have written novels that have been described as historiographic metafiction, a term coined by Linda Hutcheon in 1989 for a type of 1 In the words of Michel-Rolph Trouillot, “At best, history is a story about power, a story about those who won” (5), and “history [is] one among many types of narratives with no particular distinction except for its pretense of truth” (6, italics mine). This is especially true of historiographies written in the aftermath of colonial occupation, such as the Victorian era. 5 fiction that presents a direct challenge to historiography, or at least is keen to highlight some of its shortcomings and dangers. Hutcheon used the term for works that included “the mixing of historical and fictive representations,” an intense “self-consciousness of the fictionality, the lack of the familiar pretense of transparency, and the calling into question of the factual grounding of history writing” (The Politics 33). This approach applied to fiction depicting colonial times or with postcolonial concerns about the continued relevance and systemic ramifications of colonialism can work as a critique of the oppressors and an examination of the role that incomplete or biased historiographies and other official documentation might have had on persisting perspectives. Victorian-era historiographies and documentation on race and Indigenous people, for instance, surely continued to oppress in print through the 19th Century and beyond just as the colonizers had done on the ground. While it may be a given that writers of historical fiction may feel their versions of history are just as valid as any historiographer’s, writers of postcolonial historiographic metafiction are doing something different, something more, and something very specific: arguing that their historio-fictional hybrids may be even more valid than a historiographer’s, because the historiographer’s carries with it a presumption of certitude that gives it the power of authority it may not deserve. The writer of postcolonial historiographic metafiction, on the other hand, seeks to bring to light the injustices both of the colonials’ aggression and their historiographic creations, as well as advancing long-suppressed narratives of those wronged by colonial aggression. Doing so may not necessarily make all historical writing—either from the field of historiography or the desk of the novelist—definitively provable, but it can limit or push back against the monolithic power of historiography and illuminate some aspects of the colonial past that had been either twisted beyond recognition or completely muffled. By revisiting and 6 reassessing history, writers of these types of novels create contemplations and conversations about the accuracy and definitive authority of historiography; address decades- and centuries-old stereotypes and oppressive attitudes and actions toward minorities, the marginalized, and communities of color and of Indigenous people; and point toward a more equitable future. This intersection of postcolonialism and historiographic metafiction can be seen in novels written over the last several decades by British and Antipodean authors concerning the British colonial era in Australia and its aftermath. Novels from this sub-group of writers of historiographic metafiction fit both Hutcheon’s description of historiographic metafiction and some of the concerns of postcolonial writers and theorists, as they revisit the colonial era and critique or reassess the historiographic writings that helped galvanize pro-colonial perspectives and marginalize and dehumanize the Indigenous communities there. While there is much scholarship on historiographic metafiction and postcolonialism, this volume focuses on the specific nexus of those two concepts and its coalescence in contemporary Australian novels of the colonial and postcolonial experience. The novels covered in this volume—by Peter
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