The Psychic Journey Of Colonizers-A Jungian Reading Of Kate Grenville's "Colonial Trilogy"

Kate Grenville is a renowned contemporary female writer in Australia today.Recognized as a most brilliant Australian author,Grenville has left a literary legacy of nine novels in her over thirty years of production,and a collection of short stories,together with four books about the writing process.From the year 2000 on,Grenville has paid much attention to Australian colonial history with the publication of the generally known “Colonial Trilogy”.The first novel of the trilogy won her many important literary awards and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.By writing the “Colonial Trilogy”,Kate Grenville intends to say sorry to the Aboriginal people about what her white ancestors did in the past.Studies on novels of the trilogy home and abroad mainly focus on the first novel of the trilogy The Secret River,hence little attention has been paid to the trilogy as a whole.Besides,the angles scholars used to probe into the novels are either historical in overseas studies,or postcolonial in domestic studies.This thesis makes an attempt to interpret the “Colonial Trilogy” by means of Jungian psychology so as to examine the white colonizers' psychic journey in different phases.Therefore,this thesis intends to explore the white colonizers' minds and inner selves,especially their psychic journey,which reflects Kate Grenville's intention of writing.Hence,by means of Jungian psychology,this thesis is about to analyze the shadows the colonizers confronted,the persona the colonizers adopted and the colonizers' progress on the way of individuation.These three aspects as a whole demonstrate Kate Grenville's deepened cognition of colonization progressively.This thesis is divided into five chapters.Chapter One presents an introduction to Kate Grenville the writer and her works.It also offers an overview of Kate Grenville studies with particular focus on some of the most recent critical developments.After a brief outline of Carl Jung's psychoanalysis,this chapter goes on to explain the purpose of the study and the structure of this thesis.Chapter Two investigates colonizers' rejection of their original identity in The Secret River,proposing thatpeople like William Thornhill who were marginalized and othered in their home country Britain attempted to establish a new identity in Australia under masks in order to get rid of the shameful past.However,he tried all means to forget the past and over-identified with his mask,and meanwhile repressed his kind side out of survival,so he was inflated with persona,which led to an unsuccessful knowledge about himself.He failed to correct himself thus his individuation was a failure.Chapter Three examines colonizers' acceptation of the status quo in The Lieutenant.The protagonist suffered from shadow aspect: inferiority complex in his home culture whether he was in Britain or in Australia.In different cultures,different masks were required.He constantly changed his roles in front of different groups of people,in order to adapt to the situation.He was caught in the cultural contradiction in front of the navy he was serving for and the Aboriginals.Finally he compromised with his current situation and was not regretful for his right decision because his choice made his personality seem more complete.Chapter four looks at colonizers' coming to selfhood in Sarah Thornhill.In Sarah the shadow was the unconscious suppression under both the patriarchal society and the colonial society in terms of her animus and her love of a black boy.Gradually the colonial past was revealed to her and she set out on a psychic journey.As a result,she recognized her shadow aspect and reconciled it with her persona on the one hand,on the other hand she found out the truth of her family's bloody history when she grew to accept the hard facts and consciously took actions to compensate for the Aboriginals.Eventually she took the journey to repent and became more mature.Chapter Five concludes that the writing process of the“Colonial Trilogy” reflects the efforts Kate Grenville has made towards reconciliation.The psychic journey of the three kinds of colonizers mirrors that Kate Grenville's defense for her ancestors declines gradually in the writing of the “Colonial Trilogy”,and she attempts to make efforts toward reconciliation,which is not fully reached and needs constant endeavors.