Mythologizing the Past: The Significance of the 'Insignificant' in Kate Grenville’s The Secret River

The recent revelations about Australia’s colonial past, particularly the dispossession and the institutionalized maltreatment of the Aboriginal populations, have provoked an ontological and epistemological malaise affecting notably the sense of historical and cultural legitimacy previously enjoyed by settler Australians. This was a consequence of the work performed by progressive historians who endeavoured to lay bare the brutal foundations of the nation, thus confronting the settlers’ descendants with an array of harrowing truths difficult to reconcile with any foundational myth of pioneering heroism. This context of angst and guilt has given rise to a new literary trend, known as the “Sorry Novels”, which is informed by the wish to come to grips with the trauma of colonization by acknowledging the harm done to the Aborigines. In tackling the vexed issues of dispossession and frontier violence, Kate Grenville’s The Secret River (2005) ostensibly belongs to this well-intentioned literary trend. However, as one examines the novel carefully, one notices that vestiges of a mythologized past presently emerge. From mythologies of convictivism and hardship to pioneerism and ownership, the representation of the colonial past abounds with continuing references to a range of national myths that stand in marked contrast with the author’s avowed keenness to inscribe her novel within the framework of a genuine reconciliation. It is, therefore, my intention in this paper to conduct a close reading of The Secret River with a view to unveiling the unsettling significance of some representational strategies – which might at first glance appear as insignificant – and thus emphasising the ambivalence which characterises Grenville’s discourse about the colonial trauma.