Since the novel is titled as being the true history of the Kelly gang credibility tempts to be immediate, but Carey uses a variety literary elements to increase validity and ensure a sense of actuality around the novel, its content, and the narrator. To the unenlightened reader, the novel appears historical in nature, but upon further exploration of the content, fictionalized elements are revealed. Its through elements of historical realism, like the fabrication of historical documents, an eyewitness account of the final Police-Kelly standoff in 1880, and the existence of a Melbourne Public Library that construct the validity of his story (Clancy 54). Kelly’s rationale for writing “is to obtain a voice, to gain the right to speak, and thus, to prevent the story of his life from being infested with and distorted by lies” (Gaile 38).
Kelly’s desire for writing is justified and in Gailes’ article in Antipodes, he analyzes Carey’s …show more content…
His family had been subjected to years of police brutality and his anti-authoritarian nature is seen more as self-defense rather than aggression in the novel, since Kelly had established dependability to be truthful in his recounting from the beginning (Carey 7). Andreas Gaile describes the novel as being a “severe indictment” of “the British colonial administration” (Gaile 37). The novel is consistent in maintaining a lively and readable dialect that is deceitfully artful, making Carey’s technical strategies consistent with Kelly’s dynamic personality. (Clancy 53). Carey’s used the power of Kelly’s voice and life to reform the traditional understanding of the Australian experience at this time. The reformation was done through Kelly sharing that life was a period of hardships and adversity due to the governmental despotism within colonial rule, which allows the reader to gain a seemingly more candid version of Australian