Distinctive Australian Vision Speech
In my presentation of Distinctive Australian Visions, I will analyze first, two of Douglas Stewart’s poems, namely “Lady Feeding the Cats” and “Cave Painting”, second, the short story “American Dreams” by Peter Carey and third, my personal response. In “Lady Feeding the Cats”, Stewart portrays the image of a poor woman from the slums who goes to the Domain in order to feed feral cats. Stewart pictures the torn and tattered slum lady using descriptive words such as “her bonnet much bedraggled” and “in her broken shoes”. He also referred to the cats using negative connotations such as “furtive she cats” and “villainous toms”. However, in the second stanza, Stewart’s usage of bathos to juxtapose the
In the story, the narrator repeatedly mentioned “American Dreams”, referring to the townspeople’s life-long goals. This showed Australian’s negative tendency to pursue another country’s dream, instead of appreciating the things they have currently. However, ironically, after the townspeople, including the narrator himself, have successfully attained the great American Dream they always wished for such as success and publicity, they became utterly frustrated and disappointed as the thing they always wished for ended up being the constraint which prevents them from moving towards the future. Carey’s vision is further explored in the sudden change of tone and mood from excitement to distrust when the townspeople discovered that Gleason’s town model contained not only the beauty of the town, but also the negative contents. This conveys the Australian’s tendency to only appreciate the good in their circumstances, unlike Gleason who loved the town for both the good and the bad.
Personally, Stewart’s vision has served as a wake up call for me that nature, including all flora and fauna, should be highly respected and preserved accordingly as we coexist to support each other. He conveyed this by treating man and animals as well as plants as equal using personification. Before, I have always