Through a detailed text examination,this paper contends that albeit Kate Grenville'sThe Secret River is dedicated to interrogate white actions in the colonial past and expects to contribute to the process of reconciliation in Australia, it engages sympathy of readers through the empathetic personification of the protagonist William Thornhill,who is subtly positioned as a victim forced into morally dubious actions by extraordinary circumstances. The wrongdoing of the white settlers is normalized in a western conception of possessive logic,the plight of the Aborigines authentically diluted and minimized. This paper thus concludes that The Secret River is another white attempt to legitimize dispossession of the Indigenous and a failure of engagement in the national reconciliation process. This paper further points out that repressing the true history will never set Australia free; acknowledging collective guilt is the only way forward.
伊丽莎白·韦伯(Elizabeth Webby,1942～),澳大利亚人文科学院院士,悉尼大学澳大利亚文学首席教授,担任《南风》(Southerly)杂志主编12年。因在澳大利亚文学等人文科学领域的杰出贡献,她被授予"澳大利亚勋章"和"世纪勋章",是国际知名的澳大利亚文学批评家。韦伯在学术界十分活跃,著述颇丰,发表文章一百余篇,其中由她主编的《澳大利亚文学剑桥指南》(The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature)(2000)一书是研究澳大利亚文学史的重要著作,在文学界具有广泛的影响。2011年8月,华东师范大学外语学院教授彭青龙应邀在悉尼大学访学,就澳大利亚现代文学与批评、文学传统、文学理论、女性创作、土著文学和研究趋势等专题与韦伯教授做了一次访谈。她认为澳大利亚后现代主义模式的独特性在于不过分强调极端化的叙述技巧,而是采用多元的艺术手法表现澳大利亚现代生活。澳大利亚现代文学批评存在跟风现象,但在后殖民主义、女权主义和文化传媒等领域涌现出一批有国际重大影响的理论家。她提倡从体裁、语言和其他多种视角及理论来理解文学作品,主张开展更多针对非虚构作品的研究。
