2

Table of Contents
1. Introduction...................................................................................................................3 2. Aborigines in Australian Short Story Writing up to the end of the 19th century..........3 3. Contrastive Analysis......................................................................................................5 3.1 Methodical remarks................................................................................................5 3.2 Fear (1933) and Pompey (1892).............................................................................5 3.2.1 Summary.........................................................................................................5 3.2.2 First layer........................................................................................................6 3.2.3 Second layer....................................................................................................6 3.3 The Little Gold Nugget (1888) and Kaijek the Songman (1941).........................10 3.3.1 Summary.......................................................................................................10 3.3.2 First layer.......................................................................................................11 3.3.3 Second layer..................................................................................................11 4. Conclusion...................................................................................................................15 5. Literature ....................................................................................................................17

1. Introduction
The paper is divided into two parts. The first part summarizes the literary history of Anglo-Australian representations of Aborigines in short prose until the end of the 19th century. It serves the purpose of setting the stories analysed in detail in the main part of the paper in a broader context. In the main part of the paper four short stories will be analysed by means of a contrastive method. This approach is convenient to the size regulations of this paper and at the same time fits in with structure and content of the chosen stories. The four stories have in common that they illustrate representations of Aborigines by white writers. Furthermore, they can be merged into two pairs sharing the same setting and a similar plot. The story Fear (1933) by H. Drake-Brockman and Pompey (1892) by E. Favenc take both place at a peripherally situated cattle-station and deal with violent confrontations between Aborigines and white settlers. The Little Gold Nugget (1888) by C.H. Chambers and Kaijek the Songman (1941) by Xavier Herbert are also set in rural Australia and both tackle the question of dignity in the face of materialistic temptations. Interestingly the story-pairs share setting and plot, but at the same time they contrast strikingly in the way they represent native Australians. This leads to the allegation that plot and setting alone are not decisive for the illustration of Aborigines and raises the question which stylistic and narrative techniques account in addition for their representation. By dividing each story into two layers the role of the narrator as a powerful manipulator should be analysed. The first layer is made up by the plot, whereas the second layer includes devices like narrative techniques, monologues and dialogues. The aim of this differentiation is to show how the four narrators use the techniques of the second layer to cause either empathy or contempt in their representations of Aborigines.

2. Aborigines in Australian Short Story Writing up to the end of the 19th century
Cecil Hadcraft (Hadcraft 10-14) summarizes the representations of Aborigines in Australian short prose from its beginnings to 1893. She claims that short stories about Aborigines were extremely popular and quite early constituted an own category in addition to historical and moral tales. She states that the first significant short story that

4 involved Aborigines was written around 1850 by an anonymous writer and carried the title The Black Troopers. The story deals with a native border police troop chasing an Aboriginal criminal. The troop is under control of a white lieutenant called Walters, who is accompanied by the narrator of the story, presumably an English doctor. The representation of Aborigines in The Black Troopers is exceptional for the time, since the narrator criticizes the conduct of white settlers towards Aborigines. This might also explain why the story was published anonymously. Apart from exceptions like The Black Troopers Hadcraft exposed some reoccurring representations that obviously occupied white writers and readers. Most frequently to be found are stories of attacks on white settlers by Aborigines. Further themes are abductions of women or children by Aborigines and retaliation attacks by whites. A fourth type deals with Aboriginal children living in white families. Hadcraft underlines that in most cases white authors identified themselves with Anglo-Australian settlers. Consequently, their writing mirrored the settlers' reaction towards Aborigines, which was partly wonder, occasion-ally fear, but mostly contempt (Hadcraft 10-11). A similar statement was made by Bennett, who described the first reaction of the white settlers towards Aborigines as a mixture of curiosity, bewilderment and distant superiority(Bennett 12). According to him this kind of mixture is reflected in the story Marawatanne and Dingomatte. A Sentimental Tale, which was published in Howe's Weekly Commercial Express on 2 May 1825. This piece of short prose is a parody of a love story and features Aborigines as its main characters. It can be concluded that Bennett considers this work as the first considerable representation of Aborigines by a white author. Moreover, it is one of the first works of short prose that was published in Australia (Bennett 12), which supports the thesis that writing about Aborigines was indeed quite popular. The story can be classified as a ridicule of Aborigines and therefore constitutes another type of representation. To summarize the representations of Aborigines in Australian short prose up to the end of the 19th century it can be said that the great majority of the works depict Aborigines as untrustworthy, dangerous, lazy and despicably. Moreover, there is no story that shows the traditional way of life of native Australians. In most cases the stories take the point of view of a white community which looks upon Aborigines either as dangerous or disadvantaged outsiders.

3. Contrastive Analysis
3.1 Methodical remarks In order to analyse the representations of Aborigines in the four stories it is appropriate to differentiate between two layers. The first layer is made up by the plot, i.e. what do native Australians actually do in the stories. This layer is occupied with the facts that are presented to the reader. The second layer can be considered a meta-layer lying above the first layer. It follows the line of argumentation of the narrator and answers the question how he describes and comments the action that is taking place. The first contrastive analysis deals with Fear and Pompey and the second with The Little Gold Nugget and Kaijek the Songman. Each analysis begins with a short summary of the stories followed by an examination of the first layer. The core of each analysis is made up by a detailed scrutiny of the second layer. 3.2 Fear (1933) and Pompey (1892) 3.2.1 Summary The setting of the story Fear is a small cattle-station in the Australian bush, where Anna, from whose perspective the story is told, is living with her husband John and their four little children. Besides, a stockman named Lloyd and some Aboriginal helpers are working on the station. One day when John is on a trip to town an Aborigine attacks Lloyd with a spear and wounds him, whereupon he leaves the station and Anna alone with her children. Anna takes her children and hides in the bush because she is afraid of the Aborigines. During the night that follows the Aborigines raid the storeroom and set the shed and the house on fire. At the break of day Anna and her children come out of their hiding place and meet John coming back from town. The story ends with a conversation between John and Anna. John affirms that he is going to take revenge on the Aborigines, regardless of Anna's attempt to blame Lloyd for all that has happened. The story Pompey takes also place at a peripheral situated cattle-station. The man who is in charge, named Hewett, allows Aboriginal women to live on the station and has sexual relations with them. This results in the birth of his son Pompey. Three years after the birth of Pompey Hewett leaves the station for twelve or thirteen years. When he comes back he finds the station in trouble due to a group of Aborigines that repeatedly kill cattle. This leads to the station owners organizing a chase in order to

6 disperse and kill the Aborigines. Evidently, the chasers discover the Aboriginal camp, where Hewett meets his son Pompey, who lives among the Aborigines. Hewett aims his gun at Pompey, but hesitates to shoot realizing that his own son is standing in front of him. Then Pompey throws a spear at his father and kills him. The last thing that Hewett does is pulling the trigger of his gun which results in Pompey's death. 3.2.2 First layer The Aborigines occurring in Pompey can be divided into three groups and one individual. The first group consists of some Aboriginal women living permanently on the station. They have sexual intercourse with the white work force. The second group is composed of Aboriginal men, children and women that occasionally enter the station to camp. This group kills some of the cattle and flies when being attacked by Hewett and his men. The third group is made up by native police troopers helping Hewett to track down the second group. The only Aborigine acting as an individual is Pompey, who is a mixed child. He is with the second group at the moment of the stockmen attack. During the attack he kills Hewett, his father, by throwing a spear at him. In Fear only one Aboriginal group and one individual called Billycan occur. He throws a spear at Lloyd, injures him and then disappears. The group consists of an indefinite amount of Aborigines. Some of them were hired to do minor works on the station. They raid the storeroom and burn the house of the white family. Having examined the first layer of the two stories one could come to the conclusion that the representation of Aborigines in Pompey is by far more positive than in Fear. However, when reading the two stories the exact opposite is the case. This is due to the second layer, which includes the manifestation of the narrating technique. 3.2.3 Second layer The second layer reveals the racist undertone of Favenc's story and the differentiated view on Aborigines presented by Drake-Brockman. In order to expose this difference the following analysis begins with an interpretation of Pompey and compares the results with the illustration of Aborigines in Fear. After having described some positive developments on the cattle station the narrator of Pompey claims that One thing, however, was unchanged the old racial feud with the blacks (Favenc), which implies that problems in the relationship between

7 Aborigines and whites have a long history, maybe as old as the first contact situations. Furthermore, the adjective racial qualifies these problems as fundamental and as a result of the encounter of two human races. At a closer look the narrator even casts doubt upon the Aborigines belonging to a human race. Expressions like the experiment of allowing the blacks to come in (Favenc) arouse ideas of a laboratory in which a scientist conducts test series with animals. In addition, some text passages can be found that evoke the impression of cattle and Aborigines merging into each other, for example he had much trouble in keeping the natives away from the herd (Favenc) and the blacks had been amongst them, and the cattle would be fit for nothing for months (Favenc). Moreover, the narrator states that Aborigines were hunted out (Favenc) instead of using a verb that carries a more human connotation like expelled or ejected. By using this kind of language a proximity between Aborigines and animals is suggested. A handful of negative character traits are assigned to native Australians. By claiming that Aborigines are always late sleepers (Favenc) they are portrayed as lazy. In addition, concerning the context of being pursued, getting up late is also connoted with mindless behaviour. Furthermore, the narrator describes how untrustworthy Aborigines are. After a group of Aborigines had received the permission to camp on the station it is said that the usual outbreak at length took place. The natives took to killing cattle once more (Favenc). The adjective usual underlines that committing the crime of killing cattle is not an exception, but already a rule and implies that native Australians are generally unreliable.

8 Whereas the illustration of Aborigines in Pompey can best be characterized as racist, the story Fear offers a representation that looks upon Aborigines as immature human beings, like children one has to care for. Moreover, explanations for the crimes of the Aborigines are given and the narrator does not blame them for what they have done. To stick to the children metaphor this means that despite doing something wrong Aborigines have to be pardoned, like children they cannot be held fully responsible for their actions. The omniscient narrator comments on Anna's thoughts about the Aborigines and claims that She did not want to think the childlike people she had so often looked after would set out to harm her (Drake-Brockman, Fear 70). Besides, it is said that her little son Sam is a terror for sugar, just like the natives (Drake-Brockman, Fear 65). These two quotations illustrate the comparison between children and Aborigines. Instead of depicting the relations between Aborigines and whites as a racial feud (Favenc) there are some remarks that indicate a friendly relationship. When the Aborigines burn the house, the oldest child Johnnie is sure that nothing will happen to him and his family They wouldn't hurt us. Billycan's a mate of mine (DrakeBrockman Fear 71). Besides, the children did not want to stay with their mother; they wanted to go down to the camp and play with the blacks (Drake-Brockman Fear 69) which proves that Anna's children have friends among the Aborigines. Moreover, it can be deduced that a harmonic co-existence was the rule and the Aboriginal attacks an exception, under other circumstances Anna would have forbidden any interaction between her children and the Aborigines. In the story Pompey there is not the slightest hint that Aborigines have an own culture. The narrator describes that Aborigines are extremely attracted by the cattle station. One has the impression that Aboriginal women want to live among whites and that Aboriginal men want to take advantage of the infrastructure constructed by the whites, which implies the inferiority of their traditional way of life. In Fear we can at least find some hints that indicate elements of an independent Aboriginal culture. It is said that most afternoons Anna could stand and listen to the tapping of sticks or a drowsy corroboree chant (Drake-Brockman Fear 66), which proves that Aborigines foster traditional rites and forms of social gatherings. Good tracking abilities are another cultural achievement of Aborigines. Anna knows of these skills and therefore does not feel safe in her hiding place (Drake-Brockman Fear 71).

9 The question of blame is an important element in both stories. Whereas in Pompey the Aborigines are clearly identified as the troublemakers the argumentation in Fear deserves a closer examination. Anna, being the protagonist and most important character of the story, does not blame the Aborigines. Being asked by Johnnie why Billycan threw a spear at Lloyd, she answers that Lloyd was a rough, bad man, son, that's why (Drake-Brockman Fear 70). Furthermore, she blames Lloyd for the fire attack on the house It was all his fault (Drake-Brockman Fear 73) and the narrator comments that The evil wrought by Lloyd was over, the woman told herself (DrakeBrockman Fear 72). Lloyd himself blames the Aborigines (Drake-Brockman Fear 68), but due to his characterization the reader does not appreciate his opinion. The third person whose view on Aborigines is presented is Anna's husband John. He wants to take revenge and teach those black devils a lesson (Drake-Brockman Fear 72). It is said that John himself could be brutal enough at times, but he was always just (DrakeBrockman Fear 66), which characterizes him as the ideal counterpart of Lloyd. However, the reader does not share his point of view, because he is only peripherally mentioned. The story is told from Anna's perspective and she is the one who directly experiences the incidents, which is the reason why the reader inclines to share her opinion. What makes her point of view really authentic is the illustration of her thoughts vacillating between good experiences with the Aborigines in the past and the dynamics of the actual situation. On the one hand she cannot imagine that the Aborigines are going to hurt her, but on the other hand they had burned her home (Drake-Brockman Fear 71) and she had to remember that two years ago they had not ever seen a white man (Drake-Brockman Fear 70). Her thoughts also illustrate that the feeling of fear produces terrible thoughts. In a moment of deep frustration and anxiety the doubts about the Aborigines prevail and she asks herself whether there exist, anywhere in this grey and silver emptiness, human creatures other than black devils (Drake-Brockman Fear 72). Later however, being saved, she realizes that it was the situation of extreme fear that governed her thinking What devils fear made of men, whether black or white - an hour ago she had been inhuman herself! (Drake-Brockman Fear 73). These doubts and conflicts in her own thinking provide the authenticity of the story. Involved with fear and revenge is the issue of mercy. If one recalls the situation at the end of the story Pompey when Hewett hesitates to shot and consequently gets speared by his half-caste son and compares it to Drake-Brockman's story, one comes to

10 the conclusion that fortunes are partly reversed. The merciless figure in Fear is Lloyd, not an Aborigine. Anna is sure that Pity he hadn't (Drake-Brockman Fear 66) and that he was altogether too rough on the natives (Drake-Brockman Fear 66). Whereas in Pompey Hewett has to pay with his life for a moment of pity and softness, Lloyd gets attacked for the exact opposite. These apparent actions can be interpreted as a general advice or guiding line of how to treat Aborigines. The moral of Pompey is that Aborigines have to be treated harsh and without mercy, whereas the moral of Fear is that inhuman treatment only triggers acts of violence. Behind these advices two different ideas are concealed. The general idea of Fear can be expressed with the term humanity, whereas the term punishment is characteristic for Pompey. It has to be mentioned that next to Lloyd there is also Anna's husband John, who wants to take revenge and kill the Aborigines, but his behaviour is criticized indirectly by finishing the story with the remark that Anna felt sorry for the natives (Drake-Brockman Fear 73). This is not only underlined by the fact that the most important comment can often be found at the end of a story, but also because it reflects Anna's thoughts who - as mentioned earlier - embodies the moral authority. 3.3 The Little Gold Nugget (1888) and Kaijek the Songman (1941) 3.3.1 Summary The story The Little Gold Nugget takes place at a gold-diggers camp. In a hut close to this camp John Archer is living with his twelve-year-old daughter Effie. One day John gives his daughter a gold nugget for her to hide it in a safe place. He says that it is a present for Effie's mother who is left behind in Brisbane. John thinks that Effie can hide it more effectively than he can. She puts it in a work-box under cotton and socks. Later that day, after having refreshed herself on a nearby spring, Effie opens the work-box again to take a look at the gold nugget and finds it stolen. It comes to her mind that it was stolen by King Billy, an Aborigine working for her father. On the next day, King Billy, moved by Effie's sobbing, tries to put the gold nugget back into the work-box. At this moment John Archer finds him with the gold-nugget in his hands and shoots him. The story Kaijek the Songman deals with an Aboriginal travelling singer named Kaijek and his wife Ninyul. They travel through the land to present songs to a native audience. On one of their travels they discover the camp of a white gold-digger named

11 Andy Gant. Kaijek wants to work for him, because he is in need of tobacco, but Andy chases him away. On his flight he suddenly discovers gold and decides to give it to Andy in order to get some tobacco. Andy, seeing the gold-nugget, changes his mood and calls Kaijek a brother. He asks Kaijek to show him where he has found the gold. Arriving at the place he discovers even more, whereupon Andy offers Kaijek everything that he can find in his camp. Kaijek takes some food, tobacco and a pipe. The story ends with Kaijek and Ninyul leaving Andy's camp in order to get to an Aboriginal gathering. 3.3.2 First layer Aboriginal groups are not involved in the stories. In both works Aborigines are presented as individuals. Their actions are already described in the summary above, but for reasons of completeness they are recounted briefly in this chapter in an isolated form. In The Little Gold Nugget native Billy chops wood for John Archer's daughter Effie. He steals a gold-nugget hidden by her, later tries to restore it and gets shot. In Kaijek the Songman Kaijek and his wife Ninyul are travelling through the country. Kaijek finds a gold-nugget and gives it to the gold-digger Andy Gant. In exchange he takes food, tobacco and a pipe and continues his travels with Ninyul. 3.3.3 Second layer The second layer reveals that Chambers' story has a racist undertone, whereas Herbert tells his story from the point of view of an Aborigine, which is an exceptional approach for his time. Herbert's story is the most positive representation of Aborigines that is analysed in this paper. In order to expose the differences between the two stories the following analysis begins with an interpretation of The Little Gold Nugget and compares the results with the illustration of Aborigines in Kaijek the Songman. In The Little Gold Nugget two men are described in detail. The first is Effie's father John Archer who is depicted as a strong man and a true worker (Chambers), who loves his wife and his child for whose sake he had built the hut away from the noisy camp (Chambers). The second is Billy the Aborigine presented as John Archer's antithetic counterpart. Whereas Effie's father is hard-working and honest, Billy is lazy and deceitful. Effie laughed to think of his laziness, and that he should look so tired after such a very little woodchopping (Chambers). Moreover, he is introduced in a ridiculous manner. Presented as King Billy, the Aboriginal monarch, who loved rum and tobacco, and who was chopping some firewood for her (Chambers) the narrator

12 mocks Aboriginal culture by combining the European concept of a king, which is familiar to the reader, with drug addiction and unskilled simple work. By stating that a king is chopping firewood for a twelve-year-old girl, the king becomes an object of ridicule. Furthermore, it is not only his status that is jeered at, but also his physical appearance Effie laughed as she saw him his great head bent forward, and his thin narrow shoulders bowed (Chambers). A major topic of the story is trust. John Archer trusts his daughter and therefore gives the gold-nugget to her. Effie herself trusts Billy for the illogical reason that she had been kind to him (Chambers). The following remark that Effie was only twelve (Chambers) serves the purpose of illustrating her naivety. Obviously, she has no apparent reason for trusting Billy and he consequently exploits her trust. The message of the storyline is that Aborigines are untrustworthy. However, it has to be mentioned that Billy is not depicted as a human being without empathy. He is moved by Effie's sobbing on the loss of the gold-nugget and decides to restore it. The narrator underlines this by stating that Billy pressed the gold-nugget against his heart, where, too, was a little gold (Chambers) and by claiming that the Devil, had been cheated of the soul of a Black King (Chambers), which is the last sentence of the story. This adds a positive trait to Billy's character. Besides, it has to be recalled that in this story Aborigines are not represented as a nameless group, instead an individual person is depicted. Therefore it cannot be said with absolute certainty whether the characterization of Billy claims to be representative for all Aborigines. By designating him as a king, however, the narrator equips him with a representative function, for a king is usually a representative of his people. Unlike the two stories that were analysed above The Little Gold Nugget contains direct speech of an Aborigine. Billy communicates with Effie in a form of broken English. He utters his exhaustion by saying Billy tired now (Chambers) and being offered tea he responds No tea. Rum (Chambers). The second example shows the omission of verbs, which is common for the illustration of ungrammatical foreigner talk, whereas the replacement of the personal pronoun I with the proper name Billy can also be interpreted differently. This kind of replacement is a common feature in the process of native language acquisition, characteristic for a child. In the conversation between Effie and Billy the patterns of behaviour of child and adult are reversed. Billy becomes the child and Effie the adult. His language is rather child-like, whereas Effie

13 speaks in an eloquent style. This is emphasized by her word choice. She compliments Billy for his work with the words You're a good boy (Chambers) and she is the one in charge to reward Billy in the form of rum and tobacco.

14 The story Kaijek the Songman also includes direct speech of Aborigines. The difference to The Little Gold Nugget is that besides a conversation in broken English it contains direct speech in an Aboriginal language. Ninyul and Kaijek are speakers of the same native language, which means that they naturally communicate by means of an Aboriginal language. Illustrating a conversation between them in English would lead to a loss of authenticity. By representing their dialogues in Aboriginal language without providing English translations, the authenticity of the story increases. Moreover, it carries significance for the illustration of Aborigines as cultivated human beings, because the language of an ethnic group constitutes a major part of what is considered as the culture of that particular group. Therefore, depriving somebody of his native language by showing him communicating only in a form of broken English is equivalent to depriving a person of his culture. The exact opposite is done in Herbert's story. By using pieces of Aboriginal conversation and Aboriginal terms like Moombas, banyancord, corroboree, didgeridoo or woomera (Herbert Kaijek 105-107), Aboriginal culture is illustrated. The protagonist himself, Kaijek, is an exponent of Aboriginal culture. As a songman one of his functions is to foster and conserve the cultural heritage of his people, which is inherent in the songs denominated classics (Herbert Kaijek 106). It is stated that his songs were popular and known from the red mountains of the Kimberley to the salt arms of the Gulf (Herbert Kaijek 106). The described region is situated in the extreme north of Western Australia between the Kimberley Plateau and the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf near Wyndham, an area of approximately 300km. Besides the popularity of traditional songs it is mentioned that Kaijek's Aboriginal audience liked nothing better than a good skit in song on the ways of the white man (Herbert Kaijek 106), which is a situation diametrically opposed to what is presented in The Little Gold Nugget. In Chamber's story the white girl Effie makes fun of the behaviour and the physical appearance of an Aborigine, whereas in this story the reader can find a hint for the exact opposite, i.e. Aborigines laughing about the behaviour of white Australians. Moreover, this kind of mockery is depicted as a common and popular part of the Aboriginal songman's repertoire. However, it cannot be examined in this paper whether such mocking songs existed anywhere outside of this story, but if they existed they could be described as a counterpart to Anglo-Australian mocking tales like Marawatanne and Dingomatte, which was mentioned in the introductory chapter. Representing Aborigines as people who like to laugh about the behaviour of whites leads to the question why they laugh about them. The answer given

15 in the story is that whites behave irrational from the Aboriginal point of view, which is on one hand illustrated by Kaijek's and Ninyul's knowledge of the bush and on the other hand by the ignorance of Andy Gant who, for example, falls trees that no blackfellow ever would fell to make a camp (Herbert Kaijek 107). A major topic of the story is dignity. In The Little Gold Nugget dignity is represented by John Archer who is depicted as principled and righteous, although living in a criminal environment. In Kaijek the Songman however, the Aborigines embody the concept of dignity by living a simple life in harmony with nature. The negative counterpart is the white man represented by Andy Gant. He has no respect for nature, exploits the soil and falls big trees. Moreover, it is said that The heavy humidity had upset his liver and brought out his prickly heat (Herbert Kaijek 108) which is another indicator for the disharmony between him and his surroundings. Besides, he is described as an utterly brutal man ready to shoot any nigger on sight (Herbert Kaijek 108) and his materialistic greed for gold turns him into a madman (Herbert Kaijek 110). Kaijek, in contrast, knows the symptoms of the [gold]fever and is immune to it. In fact, he is also described as immune to the temptations of the white man's culture. Obviously, Andy Gant does not possess anything of great interest for Kaijek, which can be deduced from the fact that Kaijek only takes a pipe, tobacco and some food from him, although being offered to take whatever he likes. By illustrating this behaviour an independence and somehow also a superiority of Aboriginal culture is illustrated. In all stories that were analysed before, Aborigines were working for white settlers or golddiggers as the case in The Little Gold Nugget. In this story however, Andy Gant evidently offers Kaijek a work and even white man's wages (Herbert Kaijek 111), but the Aborigine is not interested and continues his traditional life as a songman. To summarize, in this story culture and dignity is represented by the Aborigines, whereas white Australia, portrayed by Andy Gant, is depicted without dignity and culture. Generally, this story criticizes the excessive importance of material goods and wealth for whites and compares it to a positive frugality of Aborigines, a point that is not illustrated in The Little Gold Nugget.

4. Conclusion
The first part of the paper pointed out that early representations of Aborigines by white writers were governed by racial stereotypes and prejudices. Having this in mind a

16 positive remark on the stories Fear and Kaijek the Songman has to be made, because they added new differentiated aspects in their representations of Aborigines. The analysis in the main part have shown that the stories by Favenc and Chambers are accompanied by a racist undertone in their representation of native Australians, whereas the stories Fear by Drake-Brockman and Herbert's Kaijek the Songman provide a more elaborate and differentiated view. Considering the publication dates of the chosen stories a shift towards an empathetic and understanding representation of native Australians can be discovered. It is assumed that the two younger short stories mirror a general representative development, but this remains to be proven by a more extensive paper. By using a contrastive method it could be illustrated that two stories can share a similar plot and setting, but at the same time be entirely different in their representations of Aborigines. The most striking result of the contrastive analysis of The Little Gold Nugget and Kaijek the Songman was the diametrically opposed distribution of dignity. Moreover, the division of the analysis in two layers made it possible to differentiate between the plot and the narrative technique. It helped to discover the role of the narrator, above all in the stories Fear and Pompey. In Fear the narrator justifies or at least explains the aggression of the Aborigines, whereas the narrator of Pompey criticizes the Aborigines although they generally acted less aggressive and violent than in Fear.

17

5. Literature
Bennett, Bruce. Australian Short Fiction: A History. St. Lucia, Queensland: U of Queensland P, 2002. Drake-Brockman, Henrietta. "The International Symposium on the Short Story: Australia." Kenyon Review 30:4 (1968). 478-485. Drake-Brockman, Henrietta. "Fear." The Penguin Century of Australian Stories. Ed. Carmel Bird. Camberwell: Penguin 2007. 65-73. Goldsworthy, Kerryn. "Introduction to the Penguin Century of Australian Stories." The Penguin Century of Australian Stories. Ed. Carmel Bird. Camberwell: Penguin 2007. xvii-xxxi. Goldsworthy, Kerryn. "Aboriginal Representations." The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature. Ed. Elizabeth Webby. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. 122-129. Hadgraft, Cecil. Introduction. The Australian Short Story before Lawson. Ed. Cecil Hadgraft. Melbourne: OUP, 1986. 1-56. Healy, John Joseph. "Protest and Apology: Western Australia." Literature and the Aborigine in Australia. St Lucia, Queensland: U of Queensland P, 1989. 208-240. Henricksen, Noel. "Herbert, Xavier (1901-84)." Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English. Vol.1. Ed. Eugene Benson and L.W. Conolly, London/New York: Routledge, 1994. 652-653. Herbert, Xavier. "Kaijek the Songman."The Penguin Century of Australian Stories. Ed. Carmel Bird. Camberwell: Penguin 2007. 105-112. Paisley, Fiona. "Citizens of Their World: Australian Feminism and Indigenous Rights in the International Context, 1920, and 1930s." Feminist Review 58 (1998). 66-84. Sheridan, Susan. "Women Writers." Australian Literary Studies 13:4 (1988): 319-336. Short, Damien. "Reconciliation, Assimilation, and the Indigenous Peoples of Australia." International Political Science Review 24:4 (2003). 491-513. Stummer, Peter O. (ed.) The Story Must be Told. Short Narrative Prose in the New English Literatures. Wrzburg: Knigshausen und Neumann, 1986. Online Sources Favenc, Ernest. "Pompey." The Last of Six. Tales of the Austral Tropics. Sydney, New South Wales: University of Sydney Library, 2003.

18 Prepared from the print edition published by Bulletin Newspaper Sydney 1893 141pp. Bulletin Series No. 3. 30 April 2008<http://purl.library.usyd.edu.au/setis/id/favlast>. Chambers, Charles Haddon. "The Little Gold Nugget." Oak-Bough and WattleBlossom: Stories and Sketches by Australians in England. Ed. Arthur P. Martin. Sydney, New South Wales: University of Sydney Library, 2003. Prepared from the print edition published by Walter Scott London 1888 187pp. 30 April 2008<http://purl.library.usyd.edu.au/setis/id/maroakb>.