Hello,
Can someone kindly mark this text response. Got a sac soon.
Thanks.
In the early colonisation of Australia, settlers and convicts arrived with hopes of accomplishing success in their lives. Similarly, William Thornhill in Kate Grenville’s The Secret River, also arrived with similar expectations of accomplishing his ambitions and fulfilling his desires of succeeding in the harsh environment. Once Thornhill claimed the hundred acres of land on the banks of the Hawkesbury River, he was able to prove that he didn’t require to return to London for a prosperous life, and thereby setting off a chain of consequences that lead to an improvement in his social rank amongst other characters. Furthermore, Grenville also crafted Thornhill with an ambivalent personality, as he was able to construct strong relationships with former convicts, and the Darug people. Moreover, his ability to acquire convict servants demonstrated Thornhill’s desire of wanting to have a role of a master. In other words, Thornhill was driven by pride to prove to himself and his fellow British that he was so much more than a pathetic, scrounging, poverty-stricken convict that was discarded by his motherland.
Grenville demonstrated Thornhill’s superiority amongst his fellow settlers by displaying his unwillingness to return to London. She employed and manipulated various historical facts to allow her readers to understand a “convict’s life”, by displaying the hardship the Thornhills and the other convict settlers have to face, as they encounter several issues from a settler’s point of view in “a place out of dreams” from the beginning of the novel. Furthermore, Grenville also ensured that her readers understand Thornhill’s past, as she demonstrated his impecunious life in the poverty-struck 1700’s London. Regardless of Thornhill’s background, his arrival in Australia allowed him to “write [his own] new life”. The outcome of the critical juncture, and denying the opportunity to return to London, proved to be beneficial for Thornhill as he obtained “one hundred acres of land” on the banks of the Hawkesbury River, allowing him to prove his superiority amongst other characters. Grenville also demonstrates Thornhill’s success as a convict, by allowing him to obtain power over two characters in a role of a master.
The protagonist’s yearning to succeed and gain power revealed his desire to slip into a role of a master. Grenville demonstrated Thornhill’s single-minded quest to craft a new image of himself as master and gentlemen, subsequent to comparing Thornhill’s life as a “waterman [on]… the river Thames” under Mr. Middleton, the day he acquired Dan and Ned as his servants. Furthermore, Grenville also introduced Dan to be Thornhill’s childhood friend, and to further reiterate Thornhill’s lust for superiority, as she crucially presented Thornhill to be more arrogant to display the inequity of their social positions, and prove his dominance above Dan. In order for her readers to understand Thornhill’s lust for superiority, she employed various ways to exhibit the power, once “Thornhill [chaffed] under” himself; one of them. Grenville also reminded her readers about the fragile relationships between the Australian Indigenous people and the early white settlers, by depicting the discrimination towards the Darug people in the late 1700’s. Therefore, she developed Thornhill’s character with a more sympathetic personality to outshine him from the other characters.
Grenville developed Thornhill’s character to have a sympathetic perspective towards the Darug people, allowing him to differentiate from the other convicts. Thornhill was able to distinguish himself from other convicts, as he was able to create strong and respectful relationships with the group of Australian Indigenous living in “Thornhill’s place”. Furthermore, Grenville also consistently reminded her readers about Thornhill’s ambivalent nature, by introducing two contradictory characters, Smasher Sullivan and Thomas Blackwood. Although, ultimately Thornhill chose to go ahead with Smasher and the other “British inhabitants” who “fired blindly… [towards] the black natives” away from “Thornhill’s point”; Thornhill did not “kill a [single] Aborigine”. Grenville also further established Thornhill’s commiserate perspective towards the Darug people, as ultimately he approached Long Jack with a tone of regret, subsequent to the detrimental conflict between the white settlers and the Aborigines.
Although Thornhill had a penurious background, ultimately he was able to above his dubious beginnings to thrive in the harsh land of Australia. More significantly, whilst he became a landowner at the expense of the Aboriginal owners he was able to win back the respect of the Darug through his genuinely humanitarian nature, and his ability to see beyond their racial difference to appreciate their environmental awareness. It was this humility that ultimately proved his superiority as a gentleman to be respected and admired. His ability to resist the call of his own birth land displayed a confidence and self-belief that surpassed that of weaker men. In the final analysis, William Thornhill, the convict of London gave way to William Thornhill, master and gentleman of New South Wales, Australia.
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