1790 – Commentary:

This excerpt from 1790 by Eleanor Dark explores the isolation experienced by an Aboriginal woman, Cunnembeillee and her white husband, Andrew. In this excerpt, Dark highlights the hardships, which Cunnembeillee faces through her fraught relationship. Emphasizing her feelings of separation from her tribe and from her husband, drawing out the sadness, which is felt not only by Cunnembeillee but also her husband. Dark explores the condition for women of the time of patriarchal societies through highlighting Cunnembeillee’s treatment she experienced by her husband. This piece is retrospective in the way that it was written at the time of the suffragette movement in Australia with the rise of feminism, which is clearly influential through the focus of the text. Ultimately this text will examine the idea of isolation, patriarchal societies and the use of language to portray assimilation.

In this excerpt, the reader is exposed to the social condition in which Cunnembeillee is living in. Dark portrays the severity of isolation that Cunnembeillee experiences through the emphasis of differentiation of culture between her and her husband. When describing how Cunnembeillee “tried to amuse him and make him less heavy hearted by performing a little dance which was one of the most popular comedies of her tribe, he snarled at her and struck her with a stick” Dark utilizes dance as a symbol of Cunnembeillee attempting to express her emotions, a way for her to share a vital part of her ethnicity which is blatantly dismissed through his abusive actions towards her. Isolation through ethnicity is also explore through the description of the nature of Cunnembeillee’s marriage where “hardship, weariness, beatings, cold and hunger – these where all things which women must expect to endure sometimes. She was prepared for these. But loneliness was something which she had never imagined.” Dark is examining the vast difference in understandings of marriages of the time where Cunnembeillee is prepared for extreme conditions within her marriage yet something as simple as loneliness has caught her by surprise. The use of asyndeton when describing the suffering that Cunnembeillee experiences is highly effective in the way that it creates the allusion that these things continue to accumulate on top of each other which makes the reader feel sympathy towards Cunnembeillee. Throughout the excerpt, it is also evident that Cunnembeillee has created a noticeable distance between her husband and herself. Cunnembeillee ultimately uses impersonal pronouns such as “he” when addressing her husband. She even addresses her husband as “her strange white husband” which subverts the initial view of isolation of herself as an Aboriginal woman to the isolation of her husband, Andrew in which Cunnembeillee does not pity her own situation, she’s sorrowful and pities how her husband is never happy. Therefore, through the utilization of symbolism, asyndeton and subversion, Dark has highlighted the idea of isolation in 1790.

In this extract, Cunnembeillee is faced with the condition of living women faced within patriarchal societies. Dark focuses on the marriage between Cunnembeillee and her husband in order to depict the treatment of women in patriarchal societies at the time of colonization in Australia. When Cunnembeillee attempts to share with her husband a piece of her ethnicity, her husband “had snarled at her and beat her with a stick.” The use of the antagonistic diction used depicts the attitudes that men had at the time where they believed they were superior and had control over what their wife could and could not do. The essence of possessive attitudes towards women in patriarchal societies is highlighted where Cunnembeillee’s husband “summoned her to share his bed.” The possessive pronoun “his” suggests that ultimately, their relationship is unequal and he has possession over her. Furthermore, the saddening description of how “hardship, weariness, beatings, cold and hunger – these were all things which women must expect to endure sometimes” clearly depicts the attitudes towards women in patriarchal societies. The combination of the sorrowful tone and use of asyndeton creates a sense of sympathy from the audience towards Cunnembeillee. In this way, Dark has portrayed the idea of the treatment of women in patriarchal societies through the choice of diction such as possessive pronouns and tone.

Another aspect examined in this extract is the exploration of language in order to portray assimilation. Throughout the entire excerpt, Cunnembeillee is attempting to find a connection as to why her husband is never happy, she asks questions such as “did he know no songs?” It is clear that the diction throughout the entire excerpt is simplistic and the primarily monosyllabic. This is extremely effective as it is a direct representation of how the white people would have spoken to the Aboriginal people in order to assimilate them into “white” society. Even the manner in which Cunnembeillee phonetically spells her husband’s name “An-droo” portrays how she has attempted to assimilate her husband’s culture into her own language. Furthermore, the description of the “prickly coverings which he called blankets” is another exploration of language in order to portray assimilation. Dark has used tactile imagery in Cunnembeillee’s term for blankets as it depicts the simplistic language that she substituted as an attempt to assimilate into the language of white society.

In conclusion, the idea of isolation, patriarchal societies and the use of language to portray assimilation were thoroughly explored throughout this excerpt of 1790. Dark successfully utilizes symbolism, asyndeton and subversion in order to depict isolation where the idea of Cunnembeillee pitying herself is subverted to her pitying her husband. Dark also effectively develops diction throughout the excerpt to portray the treatment of women in patriarchal society and assimilation. Possessive pronouns allowed Dark to depict the attitudes towards women in patriarchal society whilst simplistic language was a close reflection of the way in which Aboriginal people were taught to speak. In this way, Dark has efficiently examined the idea of isolation, patriarchal societies and the use of language to portray assimilation throughout this excerpt of 1790.