Writing on the Edge: Richard Flanagan’s “Australian-ness” and the National Imagination

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-170-8_63How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Richard Flanagan; marginal writing; Australian-ness; integration

Abstract

As a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural settler society separated from the British Empire, in the evolution of mainstream national imagination and cultural identity in Australia, there has always been a monocultural identity with “Britishness” as the core. Its essence is a colonial white identity that does not create a sense of belonging for all Australians. As a writer who grew up in Tasmania, Richard Flanagan used Tasmania as the starting point for the cultural fusion in Australia. He wrote three novels, Death of a River Guide, The Sound of One Hand Clapping and Gould’s Book of Fish, which highlight the identity struggles faced by marginalized groups such as Aboriginal and non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants that have been previously overlooked. Flanagan questioned the legitimacy of the white identity with British imperialism, criticized the self-colonization within Australia, and criticized the single cultural identity of Australian society. Flanagan wanted to use literature to reshape the Australian national imagination and build a sense of belonging for Australians. The writer pointed out that Australia was “generated” from a multi-ethnic mixed culture, and its fundamental future lies in integration. Flanagan’s “integration” concept is based on the premise of “love and generosity”, which enables different ethnic groups to coexist equally in Australia, “Love, generosity, integration” together form the core of Flanagan’s “Australian-ness”.

Copyright

© 2023 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Yuqi Qiu
PY  - 2023
DA  - 2023/12/31
TI  - Writing on the Edge: Richard Flanagan’s “Australian-ness” and the National Imagination
BT  - Proceedings of the  2023 5th International Conference on Literature, Art and Human Development (ICLAHD 2023)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 568
EP  - 578
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-170-8_63
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-170-8_63
ID  - Qiu2023
ER  -