Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology
- Introduction: The Emerging Canon
- 1 Indigenous Life Writing: Rethinking Poetics and Practice
- 2 Australian Aboriginal Life Writers and Their Editors: Cross-Cultural Collaboration, Authorial Intention, and the Impact of Editorial Choices
- 3 Contemporary Life Writing: Inscribing Double Voice in Intergenerational Collaborative Life-Writing Projects
- 4 European Translations of Australian Aboriginal Texts
- 5 Tracing a Trajectory from Songpoetry to Contemporary Aboriginal Poetry
- 6 Rites/Rights/Writes of Passage: Identity Construction in Australian Aboriginal Young Adult Fiction
- 7 Humor in Contemporary Aboriginal Adult Fiction
- 8 White Shadows: The Gothic Tradition in Australian Aboriginal Literature
- 9 Bold, Black, and Brilliant: Aboriginal Australian Drama
- 10 The “Stolen Generations” in Feature Film: The Approach of Aboriginal Director Rachel Perkins and Others
- 11 A History of Popular Indigenous Music
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
7 - Humor in Contemporary Aboriginal Adult Fiction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology
- Introduction: The Emerging Canon
- 1 Indigenous Life Writing: Rethinking Poetics and Practice
- 2 Australian Aboriginal Life Writers and Their Editors: Cross-Cultural Collaboration, Authorial Intention, and the Impact of Editorial Choices
- 3 Contemporary Life Writing: Inscribing Double Voice in Intergenerational Collaborative Life-Writing Projects
- 4 European Translations of Australian Aboriginal Texts
- 5 Tracing a Trajectory from Songpoetry to Contemporary Aboriginal Poetry
- 6 Rites/Rights/Writes of Passage: Identity Construction in Australian Aboriginal Young Adult Fiction
- 7 Humor in Contemporary Aboriginal Adult Fiction
- 8 White Shadows: The Gothic Tradition in Australian Aboriginal Literature
- 9 Bold, Black, and Brilliant: Aboriginal Australian Drama
- 10 The “Stolen Generations” in Feature Film: The Approach of Aboriginal Director Rachel Perkins and Others
- 11 A History of Popular Indigenous Music
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
Summary
Depictions of race and gender stereotypes abound in various areas of Australian Aboriginal literature. This literature usually addresses the writers' responses to the injustice done to Aboriginal people by whites and the blatant racism that creeps into Australian society even today. Given the seriousness of these depictions, Aboriginal writers have seldom employed humor, making it a rather unexplored field in Aboriginal literature and criticism. Recently, though, an increasing number of Aboriginal authors have addressed issues of social injustice and racism by creating humorous situations that help readers recognize white Australians' immoral behavior. Memoirs by Kenny Laughton (Not Quite Men, No Longer Boys [1999]), Robert Lowe (The Mish [2002]), and Mabel Edmund (No Regrets [1995]), novels by Mudrooroo (Doctor Wooreddy's Prescription for Enduring the Ending of the World [1999], Doin Wildcat [1988]), poetry by Samuel Wagan Watson (Of Muse, Meandering, and Midnight [2012]), and plays by Kevin Gilbert (The Cherry Pickers [1988]) and Jack Davis (No Sugar [1986], The Dreamers [1996]) are some of the genres in which Aboriginal authors have used humor. Leon Rappoport, a critic who writes on humor and stereotypes, praises those who address “sexual, racial, and other forbidden topics … by situating them in the context of humor, [because] the tensions that are aroused can be released as laughter” (50). Triggering an instant and natural reaction from readers, humor attracts a wide variety of audiences to Aboriginal literature because it presents the absurd and vicious nature of stereotypes, teaches lessons about the creativity of Aboriginal people, and suggests that hope and optimism characterize Aboriginal life.
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- Information
- A Companion to Australian Aboriginal Literature , pp. 125 - 138Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2013