The Literary Homelands elective asks students to explore how individuals and communities express their connections to place, ethnicity, and 'the other'. This is essentially an elective about diversity and voice, values and assumptions, and the impact of one culture on another. All the texts share this last thing in particular as a common thread - they portray worlds in which cultures overlap, intersect, and come into conflict.
There are three novels - two of which are set in India, albeit a century apart. One is written by an Indian writer, the other by a British one. The third novel is an Irish author's exploration of the Irish migrant experience in 1950s America.
The poetry option represents a Singapore-born Chinese-Australian's perspective on migration and cultural identity, and the drama option is an Australian-written exploration of the clash between European and Aboriginal worlds in the early 1800s.
The final text is a feminist one; a British film about London's Bangladeshi community.
Prose Fiction Options
The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
What is it: Meet Balram Halwai, an impoverished Hindu who watches his father die unattended in hospital and thereafter vows to transcend the shackles of his caste. In his ambition to achieve financial security and independence, Balram becomes a driver for a wealthy Bangalore family engaged in dodgy political dealings in Delhi. His story, relayed in epistolary form to the Chinese Premier, charts his rise from extreme poverty to powerful business mogul.
Scope for Study: In Balram, the author Aravind Adiga has created a complex and authentic voice that is representative of a class of Indian people often stereotyped or rendered voiceless. What's perhaps most engaging about Balram's narrative is that he is neither portrayed as a victim of circumstances or villified for his extreme actions throughout the novel. The line between satire and cultural expose become somewhat blurred as Balram's highly engaging second-person narration veers from the sharply comic to the brutally sobering and then back again. Students will be able to examine the significance of narrative voice, authorial intent, and literary value (The White Tiger won the prestigious Booker prize just a few years ago).
NESA Annotations: Notes can be found on The White Tiger in the annotations for the 2015-2020 syllabus, when the text was connected to the Extension 1 Elective: Navigating the Global. Most of these annotations focus on the novel's exploration of globalisation which, if you squint enough, can be co-opted to assist with reading the text in connection to the Literary Homelands elective (in that both electives allow for the examination of Adiga's depiction of India as a country shifting under a wide range of social and cultural pressures). The annotations also highlight Balram's role as an anti-heroic narrator.
Verdict: I think this would be a fantastic text to introduce to students. Adiga's novel is both very funny and quite confronting so there will be little chance for students to become bored, and the way the novel is constructed will also provide plenty of scope for lively discussion. In particular, there's a lot of mileage in examining the author's role in shaping his narrative as a complex but recognisable representation of a nation, a depiction that's familiar enough to the average student without losing a sophisticated depth of complexity that justifies the novel's critical acclaim.
A Passage to India by EM Forster
What is it: Written and set in 1920s British India, Forster's novel concerns the tensions and misunderstandings that arise from the relationship between the British colonialists and their Indian subjects. Much of this is relayed through the friendship of Aziz, a young Muslim doctor, and Fielding, an independently-minded British headmaster - a relationship that is tumultuously tested when Aziz is falsely accused of sexual assault by a visiting Englishwoman who wants to see the 'real' India.
Scope for Study: Forster's text remains highly relevant (despite its age) due to the complex commentary it offers on colonialism, imperialism, racial differences, and gender. At the time of its release it was considered inappropriate by Western audiences as it challenged and critiqued the concept of British superiority and flew in the face of contemporary Western views on Indian identity. From a 21st century standpoint, the text can be deconstructed from the opposite standpoint as ultimately reflective of Forster's inherent racism and other attitudes that have long since changed - something that students should have no difficulty picking up on.
NESA Annotations: Notes are provided in the new 2019-2023 Annotations, with emphasis placed on the novel's literary value as a key text written by a Nobel Prize-winning author. Opportunities for challenging teaching and learning include analysing the myriad forms that conflict takes within the text, looking at the way the author represents perspectives of different characters seeking a greater understanding of Indian society and culture, and examining the narrative's tripartite structure.
Verdict: If you count Bangladesh as a part of India (and it was at the time of A Passage to India's writing) then there are three texts in this Elective that focus on this multi-religious, multi-cultural country. I don't think I would teach all three of them but I think you'd have to be working very hard to avoid them altogether if you were doing this elective. A Passage to India is probably the most divisive and deconstructable of the three texts if you were choosing to utilise just one Indocentric work. Forster's novel challenged me at several points due to the backwards attitudes of its era, however, it also remains highly pertinent in that it offers a outlying critique of its time that was entirely apart from the common attitude of the 1920s British readership.
Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
What is it: Eilis is a young woman living in sleepy 1950s Ireland who finds herself presented with an opportunity to relocate to New York. Using her connection to a Catholic priest, Eilis moves into a boarding house filled with other Irish girls, gets a job in a department store, and goes to night school to become an accountant. She begins a cautious relationship with a young Italian-American man, however, when tragedy strikes back home in the village of Enniscorthy, Eilis is confronted with a difficult and life-changing decision.
Scope for Study: Brookyln's placement as part of the Literary Homelands elective makes a lot of sense as it provides students with ample scope for examining the notion of a cultural and physical homeland and the effect this can have on a person's sense of loyalty and growth. Eilis is a strange character in that she manages to come across as paradoxical in that she is both strong-willed and unassuming, and students can examine this as a symbolic representation of the way an increasingly divided cultural identity can manifest itself. The dichotomy between 1950s America and Ireland also provides scope for examining the increasing complexity of the modern world; with Brooklyn's social modernity acting as a counterpoint for the cultural decline of the 'village' represented by the rural landscape of Enniscorthy and the backwards attitudes therein.
NESA Annotations: Brooklyn was introduced in 2015 as an Advanced English novel for the now defunct Module C Elective 'Representing People and Landscapes'. As such, notes on Toibin's text can be found in the 2015-2020 Annotations, and concern themselves with the Advanced module rather than the new Extension Elective. That said, there are some useful pointers on the differences between Enniscorthy and Brooklyn, and what Toibin's authorial choices for his character might represent in relation to the novel's themes.
Verdict: Brooklyn is one of a couple of 'new' texts from the 2015 text prescriptions that have been shifted from Advanced into Extension (another that comes to mind is Melissa Harrison's Clay), which may leave a few English faculties across NSW expressing frustration after recently purchasing large class sets. That aside, Brooklyn seems a much better fit with the Extension Elective in comparison to the previous Advanced one. I would be careful about selecting this text; the themes and characters are the sort that would traditionally appeal to a middle-aged literature-conscious crowd, and some teenagers (yes, even the ones who choose Extension) may be significantly alienated and resistant to Brooklyn as a matter of taste.
Poetry Options
Burning Rice by Eileen Chong
- Burning Rice
- Mid-autumn Mooncakes
- My Hakka Grandmother
- Shophouse, Victoria Street
- Chinese Ginseng
- Winter Meeting
- Singapore
What is it: Eileen Chong is a Singapore-born Australian poet who has attracted a diverse array of accolades for her work. The selected poetry from the volume Burning Rice focuses on Chong's migrant and cultural background, straddling her Chinese ancestry and Singaporean upbringing with particular attention paid to the importance of food as a ritualised expression of identity.
Scope for Study: The seven poems selected here offer portraits of captured moments fraught with the emotional charge associated with memory and self-awareness. Chong's use of structure is fluid and free-form, allowing for word placement to slip into unexpected places via the joys of enjambment and split clauses, thus providing scope for students to examine the effect of representing moments in this stylised fashion. In relation to the elective, Chong's hyphenated identity (China / Singapore / Australia) allows for a relatively straightforward examination of the rubric provided in the syllabus.
NESA Annotations: Featured in the newest annotations, NESA's advice on the selected suite of poetry highlight "the poet's exploration of the tensions of the diaspora" - calling to mind years past when a lot of NSW English teachers taught Peter Skrzynecki's Immigrant Chronicle as part of the 'Belonging' Area of Study. Attention is paid to the poet's use of narrative, imagery, and intertextuality to explore the impact of the past on the shaping of the present.
Verdict: I really love Burning Rice, and not just the poetry selected for the elective. My three favourite pieces from the volume are Chinese Ginseng, Bathhouse Ritual, and Mid-autumn Mooncakes - two of which are featured in the prescribed suite. It's worth noting that this text doesn't just focus on cultural heritage; it's a lot deeper in that it also deals with very personal issues such as infertility and family relationships. A lot could be done with this text in the Extension classroom.
Drama Options
The Secret River by Andrew Bovell
What is it: William and Sal Thornhill are pardoned convicts who, upon hearing that anyone can claim land for themselves by the Hawkesbury River, decide to head into the un-colonised bushland west of Sydney. William finds a few fellow settlers along the river, all battling hardship to make a new life for themselves, but doesn't bargain on the fact that the area is already inhabited by the Dharug people, whose close connection with the land challenges William's concept of what constitutes ownership and civilisation.
Scope for Study: The foreword before the play goes into Bovell's process of adapting Kate Grenville's iconic novel into play-form and therefore provides great scope for discussing the necessities and strictures associated with crafting a story bound by the dramatic conventions of the stage. Students will also be able to draw connections between the text's content and their own personal context as Australian citizens, perhaps in relation to family histories with a basis for contrast and comparison. Bovell's extensive use of indigenous language is also a unique gift for teachers and students to explore within the totality of prescriptions available across all the English syllabuses.
NESA Annotations: Notes can be found in the 2019-23 Annotations. These outline the clash between European settlers and the Dharug people as representations of conflicting worldviews. Mention is also made of the Thornhill family as a symbol of the fledgling Australian identity, the author's use of parallels to demonstrate ideological similarity and difference between the two races, and the significance of this dramatic adaptation of a novel in that it gives the Dharug characters more defined identities and voices.
Verdict: It's worth carefully reading all the text that preludes the main bulk of the play in The Secret River as it describes Bovell's writing process as a partially collaborative one. His use of the Dharug language is probably one of the most engaging aspects of the text and reflects the input of Dharug performers, making this play at least partially representative of an Indigenous perspective (and in a way that Grenville's novel is not). I really like Grenville's novel and I can understand completely why she would not include the first person perspective of the Aboriginal characters, however, Bovell's pared-down version of the narrative is highly evocative of a lost era and I think there's a lot to be gained through its bi-cultural examination of interracial conflict on Australia's 19th century frontier.
Film Options
Brick Lane, directed by Sarah Gavron
What is it: Set in East London's Bangladeshi migrant community of the same name, Brick Lane tells the story of Nazneen, who leaves behind her home in the rural heart of the sub-continent to raise a family in England with her husband, Chanu. Their marriage is an arranged one and therefore not particularly loving, and Nazneen's isolated life and the increasing racial tension following the 9/11 attacks sees her begin to explore her individuality with a much younger Muslim man.
Scope for Study: In a reversal of A Passage to India, Gavron's film shows the West through an Eastern lens, and can be examined quite easily with multiple readings - a gender-based reading could examine Nazneen's sexual awakening and burgeoning independence as a reflection of the Western values that her daughters have adopted, and a historical reading could examine the significance of using the 9/11 attacks as a backdrop for a story about assimilation and integration. Gavron's direction is also of note in that she represents a female viewpoint in a profession (film directing) where women are few and far between.
NESA Annotations: Annotations can be found in the 2019-2023 Annotations document, where particular attention is paid to the film's context as an exploration of challenges faced by Muslims in the post-9/11 world. Note is also made of the concept of 'home' in relation to the migrant experience, and the director's use of visual metaphor and flashback to portray complex cultural perspectives and the impact of the past/memory on the present.
Verdict: A moving and beautifully-shot film, Brick Lane manages to tell a relatively straight-forward story about cultural dislocation without sacrificing the complexity that comes with living in the interstitial places afforded by close-knit migrant groups such as the Bangladeshi-British community based in East London. Pairing this film with a study of A Passage to India would be a valuable use of the elective in that both texts deal with Indian culture from near-antithetical standpoints. Brick Lane also contains a powerful and heartbreaking portrayal of the impact that 9/11 had on long-integrated Muslim communities in Western countries such as the UK, which links to the unassessable 'values' part of the syllabus in that it allows for exploration and expression of varied dimensions of the human experience.
