Jasper Jones a Novel by C raig Silvey (Australia)

1. Jasper Jonesa Novel by Craig Silvey (Australia) Published by Allen and Unwin, 2009 (Set in 1965) ‘This is a glorious novel - thoughtful, funny, heartbreaking and wise - aboutoutsiders and secrets and what it really means to be a hero.’

2. Jasper Jones: Plot Overview • Late on a hot summer night in the tail end of 1965, Charlie Bucktin, a precocious and bookish boy of thirteen, is startled by an urgent knock on the window of his sleep-out. • His visitor is Jasper Jones, an outcast in the regional mining town of Corrigan. Rebellious, mixed-race and solitary, Jasper is a distant figure of danger and intrigue for Charlie. So when Jasper begs for his help, Charlie eagerly steals into the night by his side, terribly afraid but desperate to impress.

3. Jasper Jones: Overview • Jasper takes him through the town and to his secret glade in the bush, and it's here that Charlie bears witness to Jasper's horrible discovery. • With his secret like a brick in his belly, Charlie is pushed and pulled by a town closing in on itself in fear and suspicion as he locks horns with his tempestuous mother, falls nervously in love and battles to keep a lid on his zealous best friend, Jeffrey Lu.

4. Jasper Jones: Overview • And in vainly attempting to restore the parts that have been shaken loose, Charlie learns to discern the truth from the myth, and why white lies creep like a curse. • In the simmering summer where everything changes, Charlie learns why the truth of things is so hard to know, and even harder to hold in his heart.

5. 1965 Australia

7. Appearance vs. Reality and the Context • One way in which the novel explores the theme of appearance vs. reality is through the construction of race relations. • To understand these constructions, we need to understand the context. Read through the examples on the following slides and answer the questions to gain an understanding of the context.

8. Race and Ethnicity: Indigenous Australians • Jasper says of his status ‘They reckon I’m just half an animal with half a vote’ (pp.22-23). • Indigenous people were not counted in the population census with other citizens until 1967. Instead, they were counted as part of the flora and fauna, hence Jasper’s reference to ‘half an animal’. In 1962 voting rights were extended to Indigenous people under the Commonwealth franchise but voting was not compulsory as it was for other citizens. Hence, ‘half a vote’.

9. Race and Ethnicity: Indigenous Australians • Charlie repeats town gossip that Jasper Jones is a ‘half-caste’, which angers Charlie’s father. When it becomes clear that Charlie doesn’t understand the term his father ‘softened and explained’. (p.6) • However, as readers we don’t hear this explanation. Instead, we are told that Charlie’s father finally grants him access to his library and gives Charlie ‘a leatherbound stack of Southern writers to start with. Welty, Faulkenever, Harper Lee, Flannery O’Connor. But the biggest portion of the stack was Mark Twain’ (p.6) • Question: What does ‘half-caste’ mean? • Charlie’s father responds with anger – what does this tell us about his character?

10. Race and Ethnicity: Indigenous Australians • When the Sergeant who savagely beat Jasper comes to Charlie’s house and is comforting and familiar, Charlie has a difficult time reconciling these different versions of him: • ‘I remember thinking that if I hadn’t seen the cuts and bruises on Jasper’s face for myself, I wouldn’t have thought for a second that this burly paternal copper was capable of locking up an innocent boy without charge and beating him. If Jasper Jones hadn’t shown me the cigarette burns on his shoulders just hours before, if I hadn’t touched their ugly pink pucker with my fingertips, I wouldn’t have suspected this man to be the monster he was’ (p. 160) • Question: Why do you think the sergeant treats Jasper Jones differently? What does this show us about prejudice?

13. Race and Ethnicity: Vietnamese • Like Jasper, Jeffrey Lu’s family are racial ‘outsiders’. • They are Vietnamese Australians during the Vietnam war. Australian men, including those from Corrigan, are being drafted to fight in the war (e.g. p. 125). • An – Jeffrey’s father – is an engineer who is sponsored to work on the Corrigan mine. • Question: When was the Vietnam war? What do you know about it?

14. Race and Ethnicity: Vietnamese • The Lu’s are subjected to a casual and omnipresent racism. Jeffrey is called ‘Cong’ by the cricket team (a reference to the Viet Cong) and his ancestry is mimicked ‘Ah, me so solly’. • ‘Communist’ is an all purpose slur, also used by Jeffrey. Perhaps in an effort to demonstrate their ‘Australianness’, the Lu’s poke fun at the communists too. Their cat is named Chairman Meow and their (swearing) budgie Chairman Wow. • Question: Who was Chairman Mao?

15. Race and Ethnicity: Vietnamese • Despite their attempts to assimilate, the Lu’s are scapegoated for the impact the war has on the town. Sue Findlay attacks Mrs Lu after her husband is killed in the war and her son drafted. Yet the An family are victims of the war too. Jeffrey’s uncle and aunt are killed in a bombing raid in the war (p.114) leaving behind orphaned children that the Lu’s cannot remove from the country. • One of the men who destroys An’s garden has lost his job for drunkenness, yet chooses to blame An for his unemployment. ‘He’s involved. He’s red. He’s a red! Rat!’(p. 204) • Question: What is a ‘red’ in this context? • Why do the Lu’s face prejudice from the townspeople? Explain why this is particularly unfair in this case.