Rainbow's End
Play Critique -- Rainbow's End
The story told in Rainbow's End is shared by three generations of Aboriginal women living in a ramshackle shanty located on the Goulburn River flats in regional Victoria in the 1950s. Nan Dear is the reserved elder, Gladys is the easy-going mother, and Dolly is the daughter of this self-contained tribe of women. The family portrait is chock-a-bloc with issues that are currently relevant: individual independence and familial duty; the important and foundational sense of belonging and home; and the enduring power of love and patience.
The women in the family undergo personal transformation and are elevated in the process. Gladys' struggle with illiteracy is matched by her struggle against the invisibility of being an indigenous Aboriginal woman. Gladys grows increasingly weary of being the last person to be waited on at the butcher shop, of seeing white people cross to the other side of the street when she passes, and enduring inappropriate treatment when applying for a job. Dolly moves past the physical violence and comes to grips with what it means to love a man from a different culture. Nan Dear overcomes her own prejudice and replaces her cynicism about her family's social position with hope.
The cultural clash in Jane Harrison's play Rainbow's End. How the Aboriginal culture is manifest in the play as a post colonial one?
The three generations of Aboriginal Koori women are left behind in the flats of Goulburn River to do what women in marginal cultures have always done -- hold the family together. The men of the family are away doing menial work or, as in Papa Dear's, case, carrying out itinerant pastoral services. The paternalism of the colonial period had the dual impact of emasculating the men while empowering the women to ensure culture and traditions endure, to strive to enrich family life, and to help put food on the table. It may be cliche to say that the small family of women did not have access to the material things of the larger society, but they did have each other. Yet the ability of the women to be of support to each other and to remain warmly connected as family members is a key theme in the story. Nan Dear's husband, Papa Dear, is never seen on the stage, but he serves as a sort of anchor to the family of women -- they refer to him often and his presence is felt if not actual. An outside masculine influence is inserted into the self-contained family when Errol, the encyclopedia salesman, comes to the river flats. Errol falls for Dolly and their relationship becomes a kind of journey in which each must find their new place within the transformed family.
As with most post-colonial societies, regional Victoria was stripped of raw materials, and educational and occupational opportunities were directed exclusively to the upper strata. The Aboriginal people living in the humpies along the river had basically become invisible to those who benefitted from the colonial days. Support such as might be available through a welfare structure was notably absent. In the 1950s, the Aboriginal people of the Goulburn River were left to themselves -- essentially left to take care of themselves in greatly constrained conditions. Except that, for decades, they had not been left to themselves. When groups of marginalized Aboriginal people moved to the river flats in search of employment, services, and better lives, the government responded with the creation of a housing development called Rumbalara -- a sort of half-way housing meant to be used temporarily as the Aboriginal people were rehoused in the larger communities.
In addition, there were the infamous and draconian Northern Territory interventions that stemmed from false reports by the branch manager for Mal Brough of sexual abuse of Aboriginal children. An actual army was sent into the territory ostensibly to protect the children and right the wrongs that were said to have occurred. Notably, no prosecutions for sexual abuse were accomplished during the seven years of the investigation and intervention -- no were any apologies forthcoming to falsely accused Aboriginal families.
The point of showing the tension between the indigenous Aborigines and the white people is to underscore that the racial and ethnic prejudice is still a factor in the post-colonial Victoria region -- just as it is still a factor today. And then, as now, the family stood as buffer from the prejudice, discrimination, and violence.
The role of the different women in the play in establishing an Aboriginal identity in a male dominant...
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