Remembering Babylon By Joseph Conrad Analysis

Remembering Babylon by David Malouf and Heart of darkness by Joseph Conrad are two works that use variations of chronological order to create a variety of effects. Although almost a hundred years separates the writing of these two works, there are some similarities in the issues they deal with, and the historical setting of both works is roughly the same time, the mid to the end of the nineteenth century. In Remembering Babylon, Malouf explores ideas about identity and the clash of cultures: on the one hand the Australian aboriginal culture and on the other white settlers who have travelled from Britain to make their lives in Australia. The Belgium colony of the Congo is the setting for the story within the story in Heart of darkness as Marlowe tells a story of his reactions to the Belgium colonizers, whom he despises, and the indigenous people whom he sees as being victims of the colonizers, but who also represent some sort of absolute evil of which we may all be capable. Neither work follows a strict chronological order, but the ways in which this is done and the effect of using the technique, contrasts markedly.
Remembering Babylon is a short novel arranged in …show more content…
It is through Janet’s thoughts of Lachlan that we learn third hand that Gemmy has been murdered by white men in what they refer to disturbingly as a ‘dispersal’. In giving us the perspective from fifty years after the central incident, Malouf brings our focus on things we may have missed, for example the effect on Lachlan and his regret at keeping Gemmy at a distance once he realized he had to choose between his standing with the other boys and Gemmy. It also shows more of Janet, her frustrations of being an Australian born girl, without the authority of Lachlan, the boy, brought out to Australia as a nine year old and thus having had the ‘real’ experiences of the European