Scholarly Research Journal for Interdisciplinary Studies, Online ISSN 2278-8808, SJIF 2016 = 6.17, www.srjis.com UGC Approved Sr. No.49366, NOV-DEC 2017, VOL- 4/37 https://doi.org/10.21922/srjis.v4i37.10537
PARALLEL PLIGHTS: ECOCIDE AND GENOCIDE IN JACK DAVIS’ “FOREST GIANT” Susan Alexander Assistant Professor, P.G Dept. of English, St Cyril’s College, Adoor Kerala
To understand the culture of a nation one must look from within that culture. Australian Aboriginal literature helps one to understand this basic premise of anthropology. An understanding of aboriginal literature produced in Australia helps to understand and appreciate the culture of the indigenous people while simultaneously they also reveal the changes the nation has undergone since colonization. They are not produced by outsiders or observers but by those who have lived through these experiences and the creative act of writing becomes an effort to impart an understanding and awareness of the experiences of the indigenous people. Immigrant people have always altered the life of the autochthonous people and a major part of Australian Aboriginal poetry deals with it. Parallel patterning of events consequential to colonization can be found in the history of every nation subjugated by invaders. Jack Davis’ “Forest Giant” is a short poem which details within its ambit the destruction of the environment or ecocide and the decline in the population of the aboriginals due to genocide. The yoking of cultural and environmental history serves to understand the complementary perspectives of aboriginal life and environmental history of the nation. Keywords: Ecocide, genocide, environmental history, Dreamtime, animism, Nyoongar, colonization, aboriginal, logging. Scholarly Research Journal's is licensed Based on a work at www.srjis.com
The relationship that aboriginal people had with their land and environment forms the theme of much aboriginal poetry produced in Australia. Despite activism aimed at promoting an understanding of this relationship, it is an acknowledged fact that scholarly emphasis eludes this arena leaving a lacuna or academia still in its pupilage. According to John Charles Ryan: “mediated by typographical conventions but retaining traditional story telling modes, aboriginal poetry also preserves ecological knowledge, reflects environmental concerns, and lodges ecopolitical critiques of land related issues, including the disintegration of bio cultural heritage.” (Humanities938). The paper Parallel Plights: Ecocide and Genocide in Jack Davis’s “Forest Giant” is an attempt to compare the condition of the aboriginals who were dispossessed of their land, environment, and culture with the Australian terrain erased off its green aura. Copyright © 2017, Scholarly Research Journal for Interdisciplinary Studies