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Andrew Hutchinson
Kati Lewis
ENGL 2600
5 Aug. 2016

New Historicism Analysis on Remembering Babylon

Remembering Babylon is a novel written by the Australian writer David Malouf.
In this essay the novel will be evaluated with the literary theory of New Historicism in
order to illustrate the commentary that David Malouf makes on the human condition.
Specifically, the grand themes of cultural divide and racism will be explained. This paper
presents specific examples from the story in order to show the theme of the piece.
Initially there is a discussion on the background of the author of the texts and on the time
period that the book was written in and that the book takes place in. Following which will
be words on how the book presents the theme of cultural divide and racism and how
those themes connect with the history of the piece. After this there is an observation on
which specific literary elements influence the themes of this piece.

David Malouf is an 83-year-old man who was born on March 20th, 1934, when he
wrote the piece Remembering Babylon the year was 1993 (David Malouf). The piece is
set in an isolated settlement somewhere in the harsh wilderness of Queensland, Australia.
The time is somewhere in the middle of the 1950s and the feelings of the settlers are
tense. Just like in American history there exists a contrast between the natives of the land
and the European colonizers. There are feelings of distrust, fear, disgust, and racism

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amongst the people of this town. The 50s and 60s were booming times for the growth of
Australia due to new government policies in 1939 (The Changing, 2015). This created
an environment dominantly occupied by new immigrants to the harsh wilderness of the
continent. There was a populate or perish ideal that existed in this society which
perhaps escalates the fears of the settlers in this piece. Remembering Babylon introduces
an outsider to a society of uptight white settlers. This outsider is named Gemmy and he
used to be a British subject but fell off a boat at the age of 13. Washing ashore, the boy
was take in by the aborigines who occupied the Australian continent. Gemmy is engulfed
in the culture of the natives and becomes familiar with his tribe to such an extent that he
forgets his native language. When Gemmy is introduced to the white society that has
settled in Queensland the reader is shown the gap between culture when someone who
should be accepted by the settlers, a British subject, is treated with distrust and racism.
David Malouf writes this piece in 1993 when issues of culture and race are indelibly
infused into western society.

As mentioned previously the story is centered around the plight of a white man
named Gemmy who has been made black and native by spending 16 years with the
aborigines of Australia. Gemmy happens upon a fence around the settlement of the
immigrating British. He is found by three of the settlers children and is brought for
review to the people of the village. At this stage of the piece the citizens are uncertain of
what they believe to be a native of the continent. Or as the whites refer to him, a black
feller. Here in the novel are we begin to see the theme of cultural divide, because
gemmy is a man of the same country as the villagers. He was born of white parents just

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as the settlers were. He was even brought up in the capital of the British Empire, London.
Yet after spending time with the tribes of the continent, which the collective occupies,
Gemmy becomes something ugly and unapproachable. He is a phenomena because he
was a part of something that the community of immigrates could not understand with
their western schema, this made Gemmy an unstable object and he was not to be trusted
by the locals. This is an interesting component of the story because David Malouf is
commenting on what is seemingly a chasm that separates humanity. Malouf is not only
commenting on how this separation is occurring in this one village in the remote land of
Queensland but he is also discussing the separations of the times. Malouf to the human
condition in this way by discussing what occurs when humanity encounters an object
outside of its schema. When humans uncover something new and foreign and intelligent
we tend to first feel fear in the situation. Because the people fear what they cannot
understand Gemmy is ostracized by all but one family who are able to see past the
pigments of his skin to what he really is. He is simply a man who is alone and unloved in
a foreign area. This draws parallels to the conditions of humanity at the time that David
Malouf wrote the piece. Malouf is influenced by the fact that there are progressive
individuals who are willing to take upon themselves the tribulations of circumstance to
benefit their fellow man and also to prove their beliefs on the social apparatus by
expressing their opinions through their actions. This is important specifically in this piece
because racism is a major issue that was not fully addressed in 1993 and is still an
undermining aspect of western culture even today.

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Some of the literary elements that are purposeful to the interpretation of this piece
in regards to a new historicism interpretation are point of view, setting, and character.
This aspects are integral to the story because they provide unique aspects on the
unfolding of the plot. For example, the point of view of the piece is consistently third
person but the character, which the narrator discusses, changes several times for even just
one scene. This is used to the authors advantage in order to make the reader more fully
understand the context of any given situation. Due to the historical sensitivity of this
piece this aspect might be called important because of how many different perspective
David Malouf would have been exposed to in a world that would have been at its most
globalized point in all of history due to the influence of technology and transportation.
The setting is influential in an interpretation of this piece as well because of its influence
on the people of the story. Land is everything to these individuals and it is the harshest
aspect of the peoples lives. This is an interesting aspect of the story considering that
Malouf spent most of his writing life in the crowding metropolis of Sydney. What he did
not have at this point in his life was land, this is a common trait he shares with most
people of western civilization. In this book he emphasizes the importance and the cruelty
of land and it is indicative of the space required amongst humanity. The third important
aspect of literature in the story was character. Character was the most important
influences of the story and the character Gemmy is in particular the most important
aspect of the story. The development of a man who is underprivileged, oppressed,
relatable, white, and black was one of the most important decisions that the author made
because it provides a commentary on the separation of humanity and it also speaks about
racism in our society. Because the character Gemmy was black people in the village

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considered doing terrible things to him. The worst of which was a full blown lynching
which was a plan that was nearly actualized. From a new historicism point of view this is
significant because it is an occurrence, which although rare, occurred at the time the
author was writing the piece.

In conclusion this was a significant text and it is esteemed especially valuable

when viewed through the lenses of New Historicism. This paper outlined the importance
of the piece by focusing on the time when the author wrote the piece and the authors
background, the cultural theme of the piece, and the literary elements that made the piece
significant. All of these elements combined created a powerful piece of literature which
was heavily influenced by its time.

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Works Cited

David Malouf." Australian Poet Library. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Aug. 2016.
Delahoyde, Michael. "New Historical Criticism." New Historical Criticism. N.p., n.d.
Web. 04 Aug. 2016.
Coulehan, Jack. "Remembering Babylon." Remembering Babylon. N.p., n.d. Web. 04
Aug. 2016.
"The Changing Face of Modern Australia 1950s to 1970s | Australia.gov.au." The
Changing Face of Modern Australia 1950s to 1970s. N.p., 27 Apr. 2015. Web.
04 Aug. 2016.

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Critical Reflection
Over the course of this semester there was a lot of new concepts and ideas introduced to
me and it expanded my understanding of literature and societal structures. Based on what
I have learned I have discovered that literature has an invaluable position in our society
both in expressing our feelings and ideas of art and by providing commentary,
instruction, and discussion on the environments we live in and on the captivities of
society that we are entrapped by. Plato was aware of this commentary and created a
format for us to judge the commentary we are entrusted with by our evaluation of drama.
He told us that the most important part of a drama is the plot and what perpetuates the
players of a story. This is important to me in reflection because it is the aspect, which
moves my life today. The knowledge of this critical component has changed the ways I
esteem stories. Literature should be a beacon of understanding, high art, and
communication in our world. Literature is the creation of artifacts, which can be
beautiful, and snapshots of our society. These artifacts are invaluable to the world at large
because they allow us to understand ourselves as the human race.
I came to this class composed of many ideologies and my preconceptions
impacted my understanding of the readings we had and the evaluations we made on
literature. These ideologies were mostly composed by way of my upbringing in western
culture as a white, heterosexual, middle-class, male and it forced me to understand
literature from a place of relative superfluity. For example, I am inherently disconnected
from the struggles of homosexual people and feminists and when we did a unit, which
focused on these types of people my perspective, was initially detached and

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misunderstanding of the plight. I also came to the pieces that we did on God without a lot
of background because I dont typically find myself as a religious person and I have not
had much exposure to the topics discussed. One story where my ideologies impacted the
way I read it was, Where Are You Going Where Have You Been, This was clearly a
story that portrayed a man who is incredibly intimidating and overbearing and shows
images of violence against women. This less affected me than I believe I would have
been if I was a women specifically because I am a man and have been brought up as
someone who is not oppressed by the actions of other men unless they are my upper-class
enemy (which, by the way, Arnold Friend definitely is not).
Critical literary theory is a very important aspect in the study of literature because
it depends our understanding of literature. When we discussed, A Raisin in the Sun, in
our groups I got so much more out of the piece when I read the piece without the
sensitivity of any literature theory. Under the analysis of Marxism this piece becomes a
deeper story on the free market construct of our society and how people become
oppressed purely based on the content of their wallets.