Black face white story : the construction of Aboriginal childhood by non-Aboriginal writers in Australian children's fiction 1841-1998

This thesis is a seminal in-depth study of how non-indigenous writers and illustrators construct Aboriginal childhood in children's fiction from 1841-1998 and focuses not only on what these say about Aboriginal childhood but also what they neglect to say, what they gloss over and what they elide. This study probes not only the construction of aboriginal childhood in children's fiction, but explores the slippage between the lived and imagined experiences which inform the textual and illustrative images of non-Aboriginal writers. This study further contends that neo-colonial variations on the themes informing these images remain part of Australian children's fiction. Aboriginal childhood has played a limited but telling role in Australian children's literature. The very lack of attention to Aboriginal children in Australian children's fiction - white silence - is resonant with denial and self-justification. Although it concentrates on constructions of aboriginal childhood in white Australian children's fiction, this study highlights the role that racial imagery can play in any society, past or present by securing the unwitting allegiance of the young to values and institutions threatened by the forces of change. By examining the image of the Other through four broad thematic bands or myths - the Aboriginal child as the primitive; the identification of the marginalised and as the assimilated and noting the essential similarities that circulate among the chosen texts, this study attempts to reveal how pervasive and controlling the logic of racial and national superiority continues to be. By exploring the dissemination of images of Aboriginal childhood in this way, this study argues that long-lived distortions and misconceptions will become cleare