Remembering Babylon Analysis

It must also be remembered here that this disconnect between the cultural values of the European and the Native Australians and even the non-existence of a commonly unserstandable speech is perhaps at the heart of the title of the novel. Malouf very consciously used the term Babylon in the title of the novel. The title of Remembering Babylon is a reference to the biblical tower of Babel mentioned in Genesis 11:1-9. The scripture serves as an etiology of cultural differences, and the loss of a communal language shared by all of humanity. The significance of the loss of a homogeneous language serves as a representation of the significance of language and culture; a theme expressed within Malouf’s Remembering Babylon. Throughout the novel, language

This fear, was very palpable though was never articulated. Gemmy’s attempt to re-enter is an invocation of the motif of the lost child also raises the question of whether Gemmy is too ‘contaminated’ to return to white society. According to Pierce, this is a theme of American stories of children lost to Indians, but generally not of Australian stories of children lost to the bush (Pierce 1999: xvii). Nonetheless the McIvor’s take Gemmy in, but most of the other settlers cannot accept Gemmy’s presence; their reactions range from wariness of Barney Mason to the thoughts of an extermination party by hot heads like Ned Corcoran (both for Gemmy and the Aborigines), especially when some ‘blacks’ appear on Jock McIvor’s property and Gemmy is seen talking familiarly to them. There is a split in views as to how to deal with the perceived threat – with many favouring killing the aboriginals, while others favour a ‘softer’ approach of assimilation in which they envision them becoming de-facto slaves tending to their crops on their plantations. Gemmy quickly becomes aware of the hardline settlers’ real intentions – the hidden malice in their queries of him regarding his past life with the blacks, and gives them misleading information on the

59) is still held at arm’s-length, though ‘He trusted the minister, and was happy in his presence to open himself’ (RB p. 59). Gemmy shows him plants the aboriginals use for food which Mr Frazer neatly draws in his book, and whilst Gemmy sees the black men in the trees and acknowledges them and their ‘claim’ so they let the two men pass, he does not tell Mr Frazer of their presence. ‘Once or twice on these outings he saw blacks…he made no obvious sign to them, none anyway that Mr. Frazer would observe…he acknowledged them…Mr. Frazer saw nothing at all… and Gemmy did not enlighten him.’ (RB p.61) Malouf beautifully describes how the aboriginals would see these two white men: Gemmy would ‘have a clear light around him like the line that contained Mr Frazer’s drawings. It came from the energy set off where his spirit touched the spirits he was moving through’. (RB p. 61). whereas ‘all they would see of Mr Frazer was what the land itself saw: a shape, thin, featureless, that interposed itself a moment, like a mist or cloud, before the land blazed out in its full strength again and the shadow was gone, as if, in the long history of the place, it was too slight to endure, or had never been.’ (RB p. 61-62). It was as