"First, second, third, fourth", Tara June Winch Creative Analysis
First, I thought of my Father. Just a boy in that Palestinian refugee camp, building a guitar from “garbage dump” (Winch, 2018, p. 280) timber and scraps of bicycle wire; learning the music by heart and hearing. Perhaps it is self-centred “as listener or reader, [to] organise, interpret and evaluate” (Hyland, 2005, p. 21) Tara June Winch’s non-fiction story through “a speak/listen trade” (Simpson, 2015, para. 3). But, as a hybrid Palestinian slash white Australian, I too learnt “early on that I…didn’t belong everywhere” (Winch, 2018, p. 281). That “race was the paradigm…I didn’t fit” (p. 280). From its very beginnings “First, second, third, fourth” (p. 278) appeals to Aristotle’s “pathos” (n.d.) modes of persuasion through dazzling first person narrations; “my father’s family came from a long time ago” (Winch, 2018, p. 278) and authentic characterisation of Winch’s childlike self. Considering “creative non-fiction is very story-orientated” (Brien & Gutkind, 2000, p. 2), cumulative sensory descriptions of “the smell of salt…cigarette smoke…the sound of waves…and night-time arguments” Winch, 2018, p. 279) experienced by her character completely captured my engagement. Extended metaphors of the Dreaming and corroboree: “there was no dance handed down, it had been cast into the four winds” (p. 278) further opened my eyes to the “unspoken history” (p. 281) of Indigenous cultural “wreckage” post-Colonisation and Assimilation. Through this lens, Winch acknowledges that writing “can’t just be for me” (2019, as cited in Cain, 2019, para. 9), “Australians want to know the truth of their history…right now” (para. 22). Her protagonist, although questioning and “defeated” (Winch, 2018, p. 278) while she is young, is starkly juxtaposed to her older cousin; “the most incredible person I knew” (p. 278) through repetitious rhetorical statements. Questioning “how…she salvaged the dance?” (p. 278), author and reader embark on a metatemporal journey to examine First Nation peoples’ inextricable connection to the Dreaming, no matter the colour of their skin, and how communities can reconcile the past. This sophisticated and multifaced characterisation allows Winch to enter a “contract with the reader” (Russon, 2022). Allows myself, as a non-Indigenous Australian “to understand and be understood” (Winch, 2021, as cited in Chung, 2021, para. 1).
Second, I have learnt language is a strange thing. To fluently comprehend the Arabic my Father speaks, yet only be able to respond in English. Around dining room tables, I say “I am my Mother’s translator” – but I suppose those are the excuses we make for ourselves. Winch’s conscious (Lopate, n.d., as cited in Russon, 2022) authorship regains the English “forced…upon Aboriginal people” (Winch, 2020, as cited in Mott, 2020, para. 8) and uses character to transcend generic literary bounds. Her unnamed protagonist is symbolic of the isolation experienced by many Indigenous people; “looking down…[to] the street…from a bird’s-eye view” (Winch, 2018, p. 279). From this position she cumulatively lists “the town pervert…the lady who lived next door…the single mother…the girl…where the drug dealers lived” (p. 279). This mismatch of fractured, superficial personas not only “dramatises the thinking mind in action” (Lopate, n.d., as cited in Russon, 2022) and welcomes “the subjective voice” (Brien & Gutkind, 2000, p. 3), but ethically conceals the real identities of her neighbours, adhering to genre conventions. Particularly considering that Winch was publicly defamed by Andrew Bolt (Cain, 2019, para. 1), her decision to write “what burnt me most, what wakes me in my sleep” (Winch, 2019, as cited in Cain, 2019, para. 16) metaphorically emphasises the “broken things, bent hopes” (Winch, 2018, p. 279) that her “number 15” childhood home represented. Yet, Winch challenges stereotypical binaries of Indigenous agency from powerless to powerful through “salvaged” (p. 278) symbols of childhood treasures. Unlike her Grandmother’s “coolaman” (p. 281) hidden in her Aunt’s home, Winch remembers seemingly insignificant “gifts” (p. 280) her Dad “brought back…[from] working in the bush”, from the local tip. Even multigenerational character relationships, between mothers and daughters are reimagined to “inherit the world” (p. 281) and “salvage our dance from the wreckage”. These distinct characterisations through the non-fiction genre highlight “most of the best creative non-fiction has information embedded within story” (Brien & Gutkind, 2000, p. 2). Or more importantly, language evolving throughout time.
Third, my Father’s country cannot be seen on a map. Has never been seen through his eyes. Is only captured through violence and warfare on a television screen. It is through Winch’s own fragmented structure and numerical “First, second, third, fourth” (2018, p. 278) signposting that she effectively mirrors the political and psychological dimension. Through Positionality theories (as cited in Russon, 2022), the non-fiction genre is a fluid literary, cultural and political movement where “to be a writer is to transcend the here and now” (Tredinnick, 2006). Utilising imagery of colonial history; “in…class we were presented with archival drawings of Indigenous men”, “women [who] were savages” (Winch, 2018, p. 279), Winch instead posits Indigenous literature as “a culture that has survived by storytelling” (Winch, 2022, as cited in Griffith Review, 2022, para. 4). Like my own disconnection to Palestine as a tangible country, her fractured stream of consciousness memories; “the street…school…Aboriginal Medical Centre…the beach” (Winch, 2018, p. 280) explores a connection to place. Emphasises that Indigenous sovereignty was never ceded. Further critiquing tokenistic Reconciliation practices like “Aboriginal camp” or “NAIDOC day…celebrated…annually” (p. 280), Winch communicates the emerging necessity for “millions of [Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander] voices” (Winch, 2022, as cited in Griffith Review, 2022, para. 10) in publishing. Her use of allusions like “drug dealers…money trouble arguments, fights that clapped like firecrackers” and “teeth pulling” (Winch, 2018, p. 279) elucidate the complex drug, alcohol, financial, social and health issues that exists for contemporary Indigenous communities. Winch’s continued metaphor “no one is dancing except my cousin” (p. 281) not only “animates subject matter” (Tredinnick, 2006) and form but questions whether the wrongs of history can be salvaged. Along the Gaza strip 38% of Palestinian people still live in poverty, 26% are unemployed, 54% are food insecure (United Nations The Palestinian Question, 2019) and seventy-four years on; war continues.
Fourth, my family’s stories are still being written. I carry with me, each day, the history of my Mother; all English, Irish and Scottish, the struggles of my Father; what it took to get to this sunburnt country (Mackellar, 1908, para. 1). For Winch, her Post-Modern, narrative structure takes on a symbiotic relationship, involving the reader in the meaning making process through what is said and inferred. Distinct language: “we were living on saltwater country, not freshwater” (Winch, 2018, p. 278) and “I grew up with a brother, whose father is Torres Strait Islander; a sister…[who] is Wiradjuri and…Barkindji” (p. 280) reveals the “burden” (Winch, 2019, as cited in Cain, 2019, para. 16) for Indigenous writers. “We carry our ancestors on our backs…we write these stories with our worlds on our shoulders” – Winch explains why so many Indigenous stories are similar; “because we can’t escape them”. Her writing, as an art, not a craft, draws attention to what is unseen and unsaid through juxtapositions “they are darker than me. They are more Indigenous than me” (Winch, 2018, p. 280). Alluding to the Stolen Generation, Winch articulates “I am a product of our black and white history” (Winch, 2020, as cited in Mott, 2020, para. 1), simultaneously experiencing racism and race privileges which deeply “unsettled” (para. 2) her. Through examining temporality within the short form, she metaphorically expands time; “childhood is that street” (Winch, 2018, p. 279) to focalise microcosms of people and places who constructed her multifaceted Indigenous identity. A precise comparison of the “Aboriginal Medical Centre for teeth pulling…painting workshops…my first kiss…first cigarette” (p. 280) is indicative that multiple meanings, for reader and writer, can arise out of “a bit of complication and messiness” (Wexler, 2001, p. 32) in writing. Repetitions of “Salvage” (pp. 278-281) followed by an ellipsis takes on a new meaning each time, inferring that representations of Aboriginality are everchanging. Everlasting.
Fifth, I can only hope the same kind of salvaging can emerge for my own story.
Reference List:
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