Introduction:
Welcome to ABC’s First Tuesday Bookclub, I’m Sophie Ryan, a guest speaker to the new show, Today’s episode is dedicated to texts that should be included as a prescribed study in the Australian Senior Secondary English Curriculum, and I am here to talk about a single novel in particular and its cultural significance towards the ASSEC.
Jasper Jones is the novel I have been brought here to discuss with those of you willing to listen. This ‘coming-of-age’ novel involves many issues relevant to the english curriculum, it involves Cultural issues, has amazing character construction and uses language well known to most if not all of the senior english students. This novel has many relevant issues to todays modern society and it is a perfect candidate for the ASSEC.
Context:
From the first page, the writing was beautiful, arresting. But despite Charlie and Jasper's grim discovery at the book’s opening, there was also something arduous about it, the way book meanders through its set up.
Its 1965 in a small mining town in WA, and Charlie Bucktin is visited one night by the town ‘truant’ – Jasper Jones. There’s a body… but its not as grim as it might sound. I realise that’s not a very auspicious way to begin a book. But in hindsight, I think that it was necessary to create the layers of tension and subtext and relationships, to create the drowsy, yet unsettling atmosphere that make Jasper Jones what it is. Which is completely unapologetic and deeply brilliant.
This utterly enchanting book is a story about maturing versus becoming an adult. Charlie and Jasper, both who are marginalised due to their characteristics. These outcasts that must grow up in a way that some of the adult characters within the novel never have. Both are compelled to make life-altering choices amid the deceptive quiet of life in an Australian country town.
Silvey captures the small town of Australia perfectly, including the social and political beliefs of the time. It’s a brave move that Silvey made, choosing not to paint 1960s Australia simply in fond nostalgia, but to reveal the truthful shades of racism and narrow-mindedness that bred malice and ostracism. It’s unflinchingly honest, and thereby highlights the very real courage of its young protagonists, who forge a bond in the face of a community that fears what it does not know.
This novel is definitely worthy of inclusion within the new Senior English Curriculum. This novel relates to many of the syllabus given by the QCAA (Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority). This novel includes Cultural issues, aboriginal perspectives, scapegoating, attitudes values and beliefs of the past Australian Society. This very modern adaption of the 1960’s which was a really dark period for many people whose race was noticeably different. The text would be worthy in the ASSEC because it relates to the QCAA in many ways, it has Cultural issues, very relatable Character Development and understandable language for the Senior Curriculum.
Cultural Significance:
This eloquent, clever and allusive way of describing the historical times of Australia is entrancing within its brutal honesty, and perhaps why many refer to it as the Australian ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’. The cultural significance within the novel comes in many different forms, the dominating one being Jasper Jones and his physically differential appearance to most of Corrigan. Jasper Jones is physically an indigenous Australian, and this has caused many issues within his childhood and his lifestyle. In this novel, Jasper Jones is one of two main Scapegoats. Everyone within the town believes him as “a thief, a liar, a thug, a truant.” Jasper is the first person that the town blames for anything, stealing, killing, theft, and any disturbances within the small country town, and it is all purely because of the colour of his skin.
This is a major influence as to why the novel should be a part of the Senior English Curriculum, the QCAA has multiple sections of syllabus that relate to this major theme within the novel. One syllabus in particular is that the novel must make use of and analyse the ways cultural assumptions, attitudes, values and beliefs underpin texts and invite audiences to take up positions. This novel executes that perfectly, it positions the readers to feel for Jasper and to relate to him and his hardships throughout the novel. There is also a major section of syllabus dedicated to aboriginal perspectives that also suit this novel. While the novel is not written in Jasper’s point of view, he is understood from Charlie’s point of view and his narrations how and what it would be like to be the scapegoat of the town purely because of your appearance.
Character Construction:
There are many major and influential characters within this deeply enchanting novel. The main four being Mad Jack Lionel, Eliza Wishart, Charlie Bucktin and Jasper Jones. Every single one of these characters have grown in some sense, and every single one of these characters is very relatable to our society. The most relatable being Charlie Bucktin, Charlie Bucktin started off as a scrawny, nerdy and introverted little boy with really only one friend with a hopeless crush on a girl he can’t even get the nerve to speak to. During the movie, his personality definitely develops, he becomes braver and more fearless to his bullies and to those around him, including his parents. He becomes more mature and responsible. He goes from a shy, awkward introvert into this responsible, mature, brave and adult like teenage boy who has seen things many people will never have to see in their entire lifetime.
All of these changes throughout the novel encourage the reader to relate to and understand Charlie, they understand that if they were in that situation they would’ve most likely have done the same thing. He is very relatable to most readers, because most of modern society is shy, and in their own world with only one really close friend. He becomes a very relatable character because of these attributes and because he is the narrator of the story as well, we see the story in his perspective, he see how he thinks and how he feels, as we read the book we read it as if we were Charlie Bucktin, and that is a major reason as to why we can relate to him and his values and beliefs and his changes in personality to the situation occurring. By seeing how the people he used to look up to abuse of Jasper, Charlie starts to realise that this world isn’t so perfect after all, and that injustice is present everywhere. And that is very relatable to most if not all senior English students.
This is another major reason as to why the novel should be a part of the new senior english curriculum, because as the syllabus objectives state, the novel must use patterns and conventions of genres to achieve particular purposes contexts and social situations, and maintain and establish roles with the audiences. The novel fits into these syllabus objectives perfectly because of the way it positions the reader to turn into the main character and experience the world of the book and the situation of the novel as if you were in the world itself, as if you were Charlie Bucktin.
Style/Language:
In the novel Jasper Jones, Craig Silvey uses many different types of strong language techniques that not only intensifies but enlightens the individual responsibility we have to speak out for injustice, no matter how difficult. One language device that Silvey uses is his main character, through Charlie’s young naivety and sense of morality, and by contrasting it to the truth behind authority figures and how they abuse their power, this language device is not only very relatable but makes the story and the plot itself more understandable. The novel jumps through times and skips unimportant parts, the novel is short and to the point, so much so that the book starts at the climax, it starts right at the point where they find laura wishart dead. A massive technique within the novel is that it isn’t in Jasper Jones point of view, we don’t start of knowing laura, or why she died, or that she had died, we aren’t aware of the evil in the world. We are naïve and young Charlie, who meets jasper and learns of these things as the novel progresses. The novel uses very basic to intermediate language, purely to relate to people of its age group. It isn’t an old fashioned, hard to read language, it is a modernised language set in an old time. This relates to senior students because it is easier to read and understand, and more relatable to the everyday language that students use.
This novel follows a structure and uses language that deems it worthy to be a part of the new curriculum, it’s easy to read, it’s inviting and the words almost read themselves. It uses subtle yet stylish devices to achieve purposes and to create effects int the text, it uses grammar and language structures for particular purposes, and it matches the senior English literacy skills, meaning it suits many syllabus that the QCAA give to novels before letting them into the curriculum.
Conclusion:
This novel is enchanting, easy to read, and relatable to modern society. This novel not only suits the syllabus of the QCAA and the new English curriculum, but it is a perfect match. This novel has the perfect amount of problems with counteracting solutions, this book is very enlightening and intensifying.
This novel suits the new curriculum not only because it easy to understand and easy to read, but because it gives detail to the history of Australia and it goes through the cultural problems and beliefs we had as a nation. Overall, this is a great little Australian adaption of ‘to kill a mockingbird’, this novel is not only a great read but it is perfect for the senior English education and the perfect book for most people in school or older to read. This enchanting little novel basically reads itself, and is the perfect candidate for the QCAA and the new Senior English Curriculum.
While this book won’t be for everyone. The writing, the subject matter, and the technical aspects will be easy for most of the English students to understand. Even still there’s just something beautifully unique about this book, the way it doesn’t bend to conventional rules, a very Australian essence distilled and concentrated so accurately. And the final, chilling scenes that wrap up this the story are so fitting and lingering that I think the closing image is possibly indelibly stamped on my brain. Long after finishing this book I was still wrapped up in it, the questions it presented, the threads that lay ambiguously untied. The last reason for it suiting the new curriculum and the QCAA is for that ending alone. Powerful and haunting.