Advanced_Area_of_Study_Essay__Australian_Identity

What ideas and concepts about the Australian identity have you encountered in your study' Support your extended essay response with an analysis of at least 2 core and 2 related texts. The notion of Australian Identity has many meanings and interpretations. As a result, the Australian Identity is quite diverse, and has changed throughout time. Dorothea Mackellar’s ‘My Country’ (1904) represents an Australian voice which explores the role of Australia’s landscape in defining its early identity; much like Max Dupain’s ‘Sunbaker’ (1939) which explores the ‘quintessential’ love of the landscape present in the Australian identity. On the other hand, Bruce Dawe’s ‘Life-cycle’ acts as a satirical take on the importance of sport in the Australian identity, a notion challenged by Amy Corderoy’s opinion article ‘Ever expanding Waistlines’ (2011). Thus through a range of literary, photographic and satirical techniques, these texts explore the diversity of Australian identity. Mackellar’s My Country serves as an affectionate poem dedicated to the love of the Australian landscape. Written while homesick in England, the poem exemplifies a perception of Identity which defined an early Australia. The poem begins with a reference to Australia’s English heritage, with ‘the love of field and coppice’ and ‘ordered woods and gardens’, creating the image of a controlled, safe and ordered environment. This is contrasted with the next stanza, where she begins with the famous lines, ‘I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains’. The use of the personification in the imagery of ‘sunburnt’ and ‘sweeping’ create an image of a free, untamed landscape, unlike England. This is reinforced by the paradoxical line ‘Of droughts and flooding rains/her beauty and her terror’. Furthermore, the reiteration of ‘her’ and ‘love’ in the following stanzas convey a sense of deep, almost maternal affection for the land. This is emphasized in the repetition of the line ‘Core of my heart, my country!’ in the fourth and fifth stanzas, again highlighting her affection. As a result, Mackellar’s ‘My Country’ reflects on her unbridled love for the Australian landscape, which was a major aspect in the early definitions of Australian Identity. Much like Mackellar’s My Country, Max Dupain’s modernist photograph, ‘Sunbaker’, conveys the ‘quintessential’ Australian love of the landscape. Conceived in a period of a regeneration of a national identity after the Great Depression, Sunbaker has been described as ‘probably the most widely recognized Australian photograph’. The photograph essentially depicts a black and white image of the head and shoulders of a man lying on a beach. The photo is divided into two main sections, with an empty area of sand in the lower half, and the bulk of the figure filling most of the upper section. The man is positioned in such a way that he seems to be embracing the sand, symbolizing a body merged with the primal forces of the land. Furthermore, the sun appears to be almost overhead and casts a large proportion of the body in a deep shadow, while accentuating the beads of water and dried salt on his arms and back; thus emphasizing the love of the beach and sea in the Australian lifestyle, much like ‘My Country’. Consequently, much like My Country, Dupain’s Sunbaker celebrates the intrinsic connection of Australian’s with the landscape, and accordingly a developing, post federation identity. On the other hand, Bruce Dawes' Life-Cycle serves as an affectionate, satirical take on the importance of sports, namely AFL in the Australian Identity. In his poem, Football is parallel to the most important parts of the lives of people, - eg. Weddings and Births, and thus allows the reader an insight into an identity shaped by the love of sport, not landscape as highlighted in My Country and the Sunbaker. In the beginning, he replicates the Australian Voice with 'Carn, they cry, Carn'…. And uses puns such as ‘Hes a little Tiger’ to add humour. Furthermore, the use of elevated language and imagery to describe sport acts as a form of burlesque; lines such as 'daylight's roaring empryean', and 'like the voice of god' demonstrates this effect . He reinforces humour through the use of biblical puns - for these supporters, 'hot pies and potato crisps' are their 'bread and wine'. The tone of the poem shifts to hyperbole and ridicule when he then exaggerates the overwhelming power of sport through the use of the senses - 'pure flood of sound'…'scarfed with light', and lines such as the 'reckless proposal after the one point win’. In essence, Dawe criticises the disproportionate role of sport in the lives of ordinary people; however in doing so he illustrates a culture shaped very much by sport, thus displaying a developing, diversifying identity. In stark contrast, Amy Corderoy’s Opinion Article ‘Ever Expanding Waistlines’ criticizes the growth of laziness and obesity in the contemporary Australian Identity. While Life-Cycle highlights an identity largely defined by a love of physical activity (sport), Coderoy’s laments at the ‘exploding waistline’ afflicting contemporary Australians. The article begins with the line ‘THERE is nothing more certain than death and taxes, but now most Australians can add one more thing to that list: an ever-expanding waistline’, with the allusion to Benjamin Franklin’s sardonic proverb serving to create an atmosphere of disillusionment. The harsh, critical tone is exemplified by the repetition of accusatory verbs such as ‘disgraceful’ and ‘fault’. Furthermore, the use of metaphor in describing obesity as an ‘epidemic’, which combined with a persistent use of statistics, enables her to communicate her concerns effectively. The final comparison, ‘We used to walk 4 or 5 miles to school/now kids get driven to school’, allows the reader to understand a changing culture towards physical exercise and movement. Unlike Life-Cycle, and the likes of My Country and Sunbaker, ‘Ever Expanding Waistlines’ criticises a contemporary Australian Identity ‘stricken’ with obesity and anti-exercise. Australia’s identity has evolved and expanded as the nation has grown. Initially, post-federation, the Australian identity was largely influenced by a love of landscape; this is shown in Mackellar’s My Country and Dupain’s Sunbaker. However, as Australia has grown as a nation, other aspects have become part of its identity; Dawe’s Life-Cycle explores the influence of sport, while in contrast, Corderoy’s Ever Expanding Waistlines criticises the growth of anti-exercise and obesity in a contemporary Australian Identity. Thus it can be established that Australian Identity is quite diverse, and will continue to be in the future.