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Walsh-Knarvik I Walsh-Knarvik i Abstract I argue that through representations of ‘madness’ in The Swan Book, Alexis Wright reclaims and (re-)defines Indigenous sovereignty as embodied, that is, something which for Indigenous people is felt and realised through their corporal being: a form of body-mind connection which includes a reciprocal relationship to ‘Country’. These representations are reflected by a disjointed narrative in which the story and its characters unravel. The novel suggests that the pursuit of social, ontological and psychological stability, is achieved through a relationship to place and accepting responsibility of care for the environment. The quest for sovereignty, allegorised within the novel by Oblivia and her black swans, repositions an Indigenous worldview and connection to Country as central to Indigenous psychic survival. As a result, the Western reader and their world view is destabilised. Repeated exposure to a world in which material and social realities reinforce one’s feelings of inferiority and lack of human-ness, results in a distorted sense of self. A destabilised mental state, a kind of ‘madness’, becomes in truth, the only sane response to the effects of subjugation. Given that racism informs the structural, political and social colonial world, I argue that colonialism is itself a kind of madness. Through its racialised practices and policies Indigenous people have been subjected to violence and trauma that has had and continues to have deleterious effects on their lives. It is this intergenerational trauma and the messy state of internal Aboriginal politics coupled with national politics over sovereignty and land rights that Wright harnesses in order to draw her Indigenous characters as unstable mental entities. Yet, colonialisms’ madness affects all Australians, black and white, evidenced by the anxiety and shame that currently impact non- Indigenous Australian’s identity and sense of place. Australia’s colonial history has rendered Aboriginal people invisible in the national narrative, dispossessed them of their Country (land) and limited their rights to self-determination. Whereas legal and judicial sovereignty seems unattainable for Indigenous people at present in the Australian political climate, the performative nature of narrative/stories opens a horizon of self-identity and self-determination connected to Country which empowers psychological sovereignty. Walsh-Knarvik iii Acknowledgements My deepest thanks to my lovely husband and precious daughter for their love, support and patience. The reading of The Swan Book revealed so many gaps in my own knowledge of my own country, particularly on a political front. I am grateful to the University and the flexibility of my advisor, Alan C. Jones, for allowing me to pursue an area of research that reflected my personal interests. Walsh-Knarvik iv Abbreviations AIHW—Australian Institute of Health and Welfare BSWM—Black Skins, White Masks LC—The Location of Culture NATC—The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism SB—The Swan Book TCT—The Commitment to Theory WoTE—The Wretched of the Earth Walsh-Knarvik v PSYCHIC SURVIVAL: SOVEREIGNTY, MADNESS AND ANXIETY IN ALEXIS WRIGHT’S THE SWAN BOOK Table of Contents INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 1: Racism, Madness and Anxiety .................................................................................... …6 Fanon - Race .................................................................................................................................. 7 Foucault - Madness ...................................................................................................................... 11 Lacan – The Mirror Stage and Language .................................................................................... 13 Bhabha – Stereotypes and Mimicry ............................................................................................. 16 Anxiety and Shame in Post-Colonial Australia ........................................................................... 20 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 21 CHAPTER 2: In the Pursuit of Sovereignty and Identity: Madness a Prerequisite for Psychic Survival 24 Sovereignty .................................................................................................................................. 25 Western definitions of Sovereignty ......................................................................................... 25 Terra nullius ............................................................................................................................. 26 Indigenous definitions of Sovereignty ..................................................................................... 27 Native - Centred Conscious Sovereignty ..................................................................................... 30 Law and Time .......................................................................................................................... 30 Country .................................................................................................................................... 32 Knowledge ............................................................................................................................... 35 Sovereignty, Identity and Literature ............................................................................................ 36 Sovereignty and Madness ............................................................................................................ 41 Destabilisation of Western Sovereignty ....................................................................................... 45 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 49 CHAPTER 3: Visibility: Redefining Indigenous Subjectivity through the Literariness of Madness ....... 51 Story and Identity ......................................................................................................................... 52 Sovereignty and Country ............................................................................................................. 54 Multiple representations of Sovereignty ...................................................................................... 58 Stereotypes, Language and Self ................................................................................................... 61 The Masque of Madness .............................................................................................................. 67 Madness and Climate Fiction....................................................................................................... 77 Walsh-Knarvik vi Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 80 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................................... 82 Works Cited ............................................................................................................................................... 89 Websites ....................................................................................................................................... 94 Walsh-Knarvik 1 INTRODUCTION Madness is already to a large extent an experience of injustice, and more often than not is also the experience of a trauma. Literature narrates the silence of the mad as it narrates the silence of the trauma. Madness in turn is subject not just to the rule of medicine but also the rule of law. (Felman 6) The opening quote from Soshana Felman’s Writing and Madness, frames the interwoven aspects of madness with colonialism, literature and in particular the novel, The Swan Book. Literature, according to Felman, allows for the presence and expression of the silenced, invisible, oppressed ‘other’. In The Swan Book, the central character Oblivia— black, female, indigenous and mute— is incontrovertibly marginalised threatening the patriarchal order. In The Swan Book, Oblivia’s purpose is to regain sovereignty over her own brain (4). She does this by narrating her story. I argue that through representations of ‘madness’, Alexis Wright reclaims and (re-)defines Indigenous sovereignty as embodied, that is, something which for Indigenous people is felt and realised through their corporal being: a form of body-mind connection which includes a reciprocal relationship to ‘Country’ These representations are reflected by a disjointed narrative in which the story and its characters unravel. The novel suggests that the pursuit of social, ontological and psychological stability, is achieved through a relationship to place and accepting responsibility of care for the environment. The quest for sovereignty, allegorised within the novel by Oblivia and her black swans, repositions an Indigenous worldview and connection to Country as central to Indigenous psychic survival. As a result, the Western reader and their world view is destabilised. This paper does not therefore, relegate colonialism to the past. There is no post as such. It is very much present in the racist mentality of the living, narratives of nationhood and the judicial system. The history of colonialism
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