18th and 19th century writings about castaways give insight into how the British viewed the natives that were encountered during colonization of new lands. To help explain the British world understanding, I will be referencing the Narrative of the capture, sufferings, and miraculous escape of Mrs. Eliza Fraser, a true story of a woman who is shipwrecked in Queensland, Australia, in 1836. From this text, along with analysis from Lynette Russel, we can see the British held the view that there was a very clear difference between “civilized” people who were part of the empire and “savages”, from the unexplored lands on the border of the expanding empire. This difference is shown through dehumanizing descriptions of natives, lack of literature from
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Russel remarks in her analysis that, “The evocation of silence is a powerful and effective technique for subjecting and suppressing the colonized” (53). Since there are no widely available publications by natives, all of the general British knowledge of them is sourced from British writings. This guarantees an immense amount of bias, because no counterarguments are available. For example, Eliza Fraser could have easily exaggerated, or outright fabrication sections of her narrative, but there is no other source to counter her claims, so at the time of publishing, he writing was mostly taken to be completely true. Now, modern writers like Russell are looking deeper into castaway narratives, trying to discern the facts from culturally biased exaggerations that were likely infused into many stories, even those considered to be …show more content…
Eliza Fraser, serve to develop and preserve a sharp contrast between citizens of the British empire, and natives living outside such as the Aboriginal natives living in Queensland, Australia. In addition to showing the contrast, these narratives further attempt to depict the cultural inferiority of “savage” people, anyone who does not behave as the British traditionally do. Although writers may not have deliberately been trying to make natives look bad, their intrinsic cultural bias may have led to exaggeration about native practices, even in writings considered to be true
Russel remarks in her analysis that, “The evocation of silence is a powerful and effective technique for subjecting and suppressing the colonized” (53). Since there are no widely available publications by natives, all of the general British knowledge of them is sourced from British writings. This guarantees an immense amount of bias, because no counterarguments are available. For example, Eliza Fraser could have easily exaggerated, or outright fabrication sections of her narrative, but there is no other source to counter her claims, so at the time of publishing, he writing was mostly taken to be completely true. Now, modern writers like Russell are looking deeper into castaway narratives, trying to discern the facts from culturally biased exaggerations that were likely infused into many stories, even those considered to be …show more content…
Eliza Fraser, serve to develop and preserve a sharp contrast between citizens of the British empire, and natives living outside such as the Aboriginal natives living in Queensland, Australia. In addition to showing the contrast, these narratives further attempt to depict the cultural inferiority of “savage” people, anyone who does not behave as the British traditionally do. Although writers may not have deliberately been trying to make natives look bad, their intrinsic cultural bias may have led to exaggeration about native practices, even in writings considered to be true