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Sally Morgan My Place Essay

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Chapter Two Literature Review Sally Morgan’s My Place addresses the distinguishing issues of Post-colonialism, ‘place’ and ‘displacement’. There are several measures of establishing identity, and especially being aware of one’s place and having sense of belonging in a specific society are very important. Therefore losing one’s existing place can sometimes feel like losing one’s identity. Sally is told by her grandmother and mother that she is Indian, so she thought she is Indian until 15 years old. After she realized that she has actually shared Australian indigenous blood, she goes a journey of finding hidden roots of her indigenous identity through her autobiographical novel. The novel involves her quest to uncover her aboriginal heritage …show more content…

The most often referenced critics are Bain Attwood and Jackie Huggins. Attwood argues that “the nature of the Aboriginality asserted in My Place is inherently problematic” (Attwood 1992). He doubts Sally’s Aboriginality: “Morgan was unconscious of her Aboriginal background and only becomes fully cognizant of her ‘Aboriginality’ through the telling of the history of various members of her family” (Attwood 1992). Huggins concur with Attwood’s sentence that “Morgan’s ‘Aboriginality’ is forged through the creation of the text rather than the reverse” (Attwood 1992; Cited in Huggins 1993), and questions the authenticity of Sally’s Aboriginality. Although Sally is Part-Aboriginal, she has spent life in white society, and in the story, she only once visits an Aboriginal community, Pilbara region, where she meets Aboriginal people and learns her family’s historical story. Huggins supports it: “Aboriginality cannot be acquired overnight” (Huggins 1993). Huggins writes that the greatest weakness of My Place is that Sally presents Aboriginality as something that can be easily understood by a white audience and white literary world, which is actually not easy for all-white Australians to comprehend. Attwood and Huggins point out Sally’s use of English as the reason of their attitude. Attwood argues that though English makes the book more accessible, but it weakens rather than strengthens her indigenous identity. Huggins suggests that Aboriginal writers should “keep indigenous languages, styles and methodologies” (Huggins 1993). Such reasons caused their disapproval of Sally’s Aboriginality. However, there are opposite views to these assertions. Non-Aboriginal people

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