Smyth, Elizabeth (2021) Locating the Sugarcane Grower: An Ecocritical Reading of Three Australian Novels. In: [Presented at the 8th ASLEC-ANZ Conference]. From: 8th ASLEC-ANZ Conference: Ngā tohu o te huarere: conversations beyond human scales, 23-26 November 2021, Online.

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Abstract

In Australian literature, farming is understood as a destructive colonial extraction of wealth that has obliterated the classical Aboriginal relationship with non-human nature. In this essay, I shift attention from the post-1788 settler-colonial worldview to the pre-industrial influences arising from the classical poetry of Virgil’s “Georgics”. I compare Virgil’s farming instructions with depictions of farming practices in Jean Devanny’s Cindie: A Chronicle of the Canefields (1946), John Naish’s The Cruel Field (1962) and Ronald McKie’s The Crushing (1977). I argue that the combination of historical settings, Devanny’s emphasis on the pastoral mode, Naish’s canecutter perspective and McKie’s town setting results in anthropocentric novels that inadequately reflect Virgil’s ecologically-sensitive approach to farming. As the first ecocritical reading of Australian sugarcane fiction, this essay has repercussions for writers and readers seeking new ways of understanding the sugarcane grower. I locate Australia’s fictional sugarcane grower at a waypoint on a return to ecologically-sensitive farming.

Item ID:	82815
Item Type:	Conference Item (Presentation)
Keywords:	Virgil, georgic, sugarcane, Australia, fiction, Devanny, McKie, Naish
Related URLs:	https://aslecanz.org.au/conferences-and-...
Date Deposited:	21 May 2024 01:00
FoR Codes:	47 LANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE > 4705 Literary studies > 470502 Australian literature (excl. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander literature) @ 100%
SEO Codes:	13 CULTURE AND SOCIETY > 1302 Communication > 130203 Literature @ 100%
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