English Task ii.
Inside My Mother - Text Analysis
Analyse how language is used in your prescribed text to reflect and shape your
understanding of other people and their worlds.
Language is an influential platform, wielding the power to both reflect and shape
individual and collective understanding of foreign and familiar people and the worlds
in which the belong to. Evident in the poems ‘Oombulgarii’, ‘Unearth’ and ‘Eyes’, Ali
Cobby Eckermann shines a much needed light on the Aboriginal and female
perspective, furthering the readers insight and comprehension on topics of which
they may be ignorant towards. She achieves this through her sharp utilisation of
language and the way in which she expresses her feelings towards said concepts to
audiences.
The title of this poem, ‘Oombulgarii’, is that of a small Aboriginal community that
once resided in Northern Western Australia. However, in October of 2010 the
Western Australian government made the conscious decision to close the area,
gradually demolishing its buildings and forcing its inhabitants to relocate. And it is
through this poem in which Eckermann successfully highlights and explores the
once disgraced land and its people.
The opening stanza begins with the phrase “tumble weeds of blue pattern dresses”,
Eckermann effectively uses symbolism and imagery to accentuate the deserted
state of the towns, as many Aboriginal-Australian women often wore coloured
garments, which as shops were bulldozed, would be scattered on the ground
empty, their presence still strong within the now barren landscape.
This continual use of extended motifs of nature in the following stanzas serve as
important literary devices to help the reader visualise the severity of the events
which have unfolded, bringing them under a new light. One example of this is within
the line “Even the wind can no longer stir” to represent the lack of change and
progression the community has fallen under. Another being “echoes of laughter roll
like distant thunder, but unlike a storm cannot pass by”; as storms more often than
not are periods of darkness which eventually come to a closure, but in this case
remains in this constant state, stuck in time. This is furthered by the accompanying
‘Hysterical energy’ which “whips and wails, and wails”, depicting a vivid and
haunting image of the removal of its innocent and distraught community.
�1
This all comes together with the purpose of evoking a sense of curiosity in the
reader, challenging them to go out and seek the truth for themselves, and to not
blindly follow without asking the important questions first.
These themes are continued in another of her poems, ‘Unearth’ which explores the
historical injustices of Australia’s dark past, encouraging the readers, primarily the
young Aboriginal-Australian’s of today, to rediscover their history in a new light,
confronting the various distortions of the truth told time and time again.
The poem begins with a call to action, Eckermann inviting...
