Blackwood Character Analysis
To be completely honest, when I first read Blackwood's character, I thought he was going to have lots of parallels to Mr. Middleton and function as a sort of guiding figure or mentor towards Will. However, after reading the last section, I have come to the conclusion that in The Secret River, his role is greater than that of a mentor. Blackwood's civility with the aboriginals and revelation that he has an aboriginal wife and mixed child, reveals that he is the embodiment of ideal relations between the colonizers and indigenous population.
Through Blackwood's character, we see a perspective and relationship with the aboriginals that is not the norm of that period and place. His character shows the readers that there was occasionally whites who had a peaceful and mutually respecting relationship with the indigenous groups. His perspective is essential to the story told from the side of the colonizers, as it is a direct contrast to Smasher's perspective of the natives, who is racist and evil towards the aboriginals.
Hey Catalina, I had similar thoughts about Blackwood. He seemed more like a mentor to Thornhill more than anything and it was almost unexpected the role in which he played with the aboriginal people. I would agree with your assessment that Blackwood is the ideal embodiment of what colonial relationship should be like with the aboriginals. Towards the beginning of Blackwood's appearance in the story, I thought his expression of "give a little, take a little" was a bit odd because I thought he was referring to them being thieves. Now, I realize that Blackwood was referring to their whole situation with the aboriginals. The settlers are always taking from them like land so it is only fair that they get some of the fruits from the land that they took. Alas, that is not how most settlers saw it.
ReplyDeleteHi Catalina, thank you for sharing your perspective on Blackwood, I think it is spot on. I also thought he shared characteristics with Mr. Middleton early on. While their characters continue to share some similarities, I agree that Blackwood has become a more unique character in the novel. He has more depth. One question your post raised for me is: I wonder how historically accurate Blackwood's character was? How did Grenville get this idea? Did it come from a source or testimony, or was it purely her creation?
ReplyDeleteHi Catalina! I totally agree that Blackwood is the embodiment of ideal relations between the colonizers and indigenous population. He interacts with the Aboriginals like regular people. Blackwood's character has much more understanding and depth than some of the other characters. He realizes how he can co-exist with the Aboriginals and avoid violent conflicts. I wonder how different the novel would be if more people listened to Blackwood.
ReplyDeleteHey Catalina! I also thought that Blackwood would just be the mentor character and that was going to be most of what we'd seen from him, but it turns out there's much more to him than expected. I agree that he represents the potential for healthy cultural exchange that unfortunately isn't very common historically. There aren't very many characters that we get to see the natives in a positive lens through, so Blackwood and Dick stand out in that regard.
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