Thesis
Mythic reconstruction: a study of Australian Aboriginal and African literatures
Masters by Research, Murdoch University
2007
Abstract
This thesis seeks to explore the intention of postcolonial Australian Aboriginal and Indigenous South African postcolonial writers in reconstructing cultural and historical myths. The predominant concerns of this thesis are the issues of Representation and Historiography as they are constructed in the four primary texts namely Dr Wooreddy's Prescription for Enduring the Ending of the World, The Heart of Redness, The Kadaitcha Sung and Woza Albert!
It begins with a summary journey into the concepts of the postcolonial, presenting some of the challenges with which the concept has been confronted finding nonetheless it enabling as an 'anticipatory discourse' in appreciating the literatures from once-colonised nations such as Australia and South Africa.
I then take a cursory look at the concept of myth while focussing on how writers like Sam Watson and Barney, Mtwa and Mbogeni put such cultural myths as the Biamee deity in The Kadaitcha Sung and the second coming of Jesus in Woza Albert! to use.
In the next section, I focus on how the writers Mudrooroo (then Colin Johnson) in Australia and Mda from South Africa confront and reconstruct some of the historical myths upon which European colonialism was founded, using the texts, Dr Wooreddy's Prescription for Enduring the Ending of the World and The Heart of Redness.
The achievement of this thesis has simply been one of the canonical expansions recommended of postcolonial criticism; the stressing an appreciation of the differences that exist even when postcolonial writers seek to achieve the same goal with their literatures.
Details
- Title
- Mythic reconstruction: a study of Australian Aboriginal and African literatures
- Authors/Creators
- Esosa Osaghae
- Contributors
- Hugh Webb (Supervisor)Jennifer De Reuck (Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Murdoch University; Masters by Research
- Identifiers
- 991005544655407891
- Murdoch Affiliation
- School of Social Sciences and Humanities
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis
Metrics
1612 File views/ downloads
174 Record Views