We Are Going By Dorothea Mackellar Analysis

Improved Essays
In this world, each person can have a different perspective and opinion on one exact thing such as a political issue, the appearance of a certain individual, object, etc. The poems “My Country” by Dorothea Mackellar and “We Are Going” by Oodgeroo Noonuccal are both written in their own personal perspectives and give readers an insight into Australia’s exquisite environment and past tragedies. In Dorothea Mackellar’s poem “My Country”, she shares her admiration for Australia’s beauty and danger, landscape/geographical features and her personal relationship with the land. On the contrary, Oodgeroo Noonuccal the poet of “We Are Going”, writes the poem in an Aboriginal perspective and shares about Australia’s historically tragic past, indigenous …show more content…
Words like shaded, soft and dim show the peacefulness of England as oppose to the sunburnt and ragged mountains of Australia.
Although it may not be a lot, Dorothea Mackellar’s use and placement of exclamation points, emphasize her love for Australia and her strong belief in her opinion.
“The wide brown land for me!”
“Core of my heart, my country!”

To help the reader’s envision Australia’s divine landscape, Dorothea Mackellar uses a wide variety of language features such as alliteration, imagery and adjectives.
Alliteration is used in the text to draw attention to the words used and make them more interesting and emphasize the image that Dorothea Mackellar is trying to portray.
“Where lithe lianas coil,”
The incorporation of imagery in the text helps create a clearer and more distinct image in the reader’s mind and it also makes the readers feel like they are in the same location as Dorothea Mackellar, helping them relate to the poem more.
“The stark white ring-barked forests,
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon,
Green tangle of the
…show more content…
“I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror”
Although both poets (Dorothea Mackellar and Oodgeroo Noonuccal) have written about the same country, the opinions expressed through each individual poem is different. While Dorothea Mackellar is struck by homesickness while she writes, Oodgeroo Noonuccal on the contrary, is writing in her homeland about the tragic scene unfolding before her eyes.
Oodgeroo Noonuccal uses similes to construct an image in the readers mind of what she was witnessing. The effective use of this language feature is another factor that adds to the clarity of the scene she is trying to portray through this poem.
“…white men hurry about like ants.”
The specific description and use of words given of the appearance of their old bora ring (stanza 1, line 7-8) again helps to create a visual image in the reader’s mind and also convey the emotions felt when their land was being disrespected.
“Notice of the estate agent reads: 'Rubbish May Be Tipped Here '.
Now it half covers the traces of the old bora

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    “Song of the Chattahoochee,” written by Sidney Lanier in 1877, is a poem where the author expresses his love for nature and values of moral duties through the view of a river. This Georgian author describes the journey a river takes as it travels downward, south of Georgia, after the unpleasant events of the Civil War. As it flows downward from the mountains to the ocean, the river faces obstacles that it overcomes and allows for it to recognize its true devotional duty it was given for life on Earth. The lyrical poem, “Song of the Chattahoochee,” truly demonstrates the traditional elements of nature, music, and accountability to explore the more mature theme of answering to the spiritual call of responsibility. These facets are explored by…

    • 1091 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Fishhawk Poem Analysis

    • 1074 Words
    • 5 Pages

    “Fishhawk” was the first poem of the Classic of Poetry, the earliest poetry collection of East Asia (p.1322). In contrast to many poems in the “Airs of Domain” that propagated Confucianism, “Fishhawk” is a simple love poem. The poem revolves around a young man who was “tormented by his desire for a girl”(p.1322). While this poem is labeled as a “romantic folk song”(p.1322), the good use of literary elements, syntax, and language added a bit of tint to the love story.…

    • 1074 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Poetry is a superb way for a writer to express strong feelings and emotions using complex and in-depth literature. Lorna Munro exhibits the way the white people “stole” the aboriginal land in her poem ‘Dripping with Decadence’. She expresses an effective way of the changing Australian identity showing her hatred and anger to get her point across. ‘Life-cycle’ by Bruce Dawe, expands on the stereotype that all Victorians are born AFL players. This fun loving poem captures the humorous side to the changing Australian identity by using puns and relatable terms that we use to this…

    • 97 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    However, Brown uses unpleasant diction to describe the land loss. His choice of diction is opposite from the colorful one Momaday uses. The passage is liveliness and very dull when describing the plains. Brown uses words such as “metallic sky” and “parched.” When writing about the land he says,”..endless desolation of bones and skulls and rotting hooves.”…

    • 424 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Purple Threads Analysis

    • 890 Words
    • 4 Pages

    English Analytical Essay FINAL Renowned for their inseparable relationship to their land, few people grasp the concept of Indigenous Australian peoples’ inextricable ‘connection’ with the Country. Opposing perspectives regarding the Australian Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) relationship to Country are offered by the author of Purple Threads, Jeanine Leane and Gary Crew, author of Strange Objects. Crew’s representation through the perspective of Wouter Loos’ journal and Steven Messenger includes deliberate literary devices such as characterisation, figurative language and sentence structure in order to describe the lack of ‘connection’ to the land that non-indigenous people have. Leane has utilised similar literary devices to depict a rich and…

    • 890 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    In the narrative poem ¨Oranges¨ by Gary Soto, he uses a lot of different types of figurative language like similes, personification, and imagery to ¨spice up¨ hs writing. I really like what he does with the different types of figurative language, and I think that if he didn't put any figurative language it wouldn't be as good as with figurative language. In the first stanza he uses imagery to explain how the girl looked as she came out of her house. He could have easily just said she looked good or great as she exited her home…

    • 195 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Slessor’s poetry examines the truth in life that humans are fragile creatures using the powerful images of the dichotomy of the human condition and the aspect of Australia unique landscape. Kenneth Slessor composed the poems “Beach Burial” and “North Country” unveils the reminiscent images of war and its effect on people to allow the responder to imagine images of the coming of Australian life. The inevitable conclusion of time is death in Beach Burial while North Country captures the finality in the destruction and dehumanisation of the Australian environment. The poems use a range of techniques and features to convey the ideas. Images of darkness dominate Slessor’s poetry in revealing the macabre images of the defeat of humanity and…

    • 1049 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Introduction The short story ‘Only Ten’ by Allan Baillie is a heart touching novel which relates to a 10 year old kids called Hussein ‘The Shah’. In the story, the protagonist Hussein is a refugee who has come to Australia from a war zone country. He is an intruder at his new school, where he is seen differently by other kids in both appearance and behaviour. As the time passes Hussein makes the first move towards acceptance when he offers comfort and sympathy to a fellow students whose sister has died.…

    • 1319 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In that time, this diction would’ve been used in an everyday conversation whereas now readers may find it hard to read. Nevertheless, Bryant is sure to use other timeless rhetoric techniques and components of poetry so the reader can understand the message Bryant is conveying. The diction Bryant chooses is imperative to his use of imagery. Throughout the poem, Bryant manipulates and even personifies certain aspects of nature to enhance his use of imagery.…

    • 809 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Many instances exist where Plath uses imagery to appeal to all 5 senses in this poem. By enticing the readers with descriptive sensory details, the theme reveals itself with vigor. Another component of this poem is that she references the sea a plethora of times. For example, in the first stanza, Plath writes, “A blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea/Somewhere at the end of it, heaving.” (3-4).…

    • 1355 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dorothea Mackellar

    • 443 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The poems I have selected for this poster is the poem ‘My Country’ by Dorothea Mackellar, and ‘Waratah and Wattle’ by Henry Lawson. Both of these poems have the theme of the individual poet expressing their ideas and thoughts about Australia’s beautiful landscape and plants. So, for this reason I decided to have a rough outline of Australia, along with it being cut around the outline in the shape of Australia. Another main feature of this poster is the red love heart placed in the centre of the poster. This is because in the poem ‘My Country’, Dorothea Mackellar expresses her feelings of Australia as the “Core of my heart, my country!”, and then she goes on to expresses her love for both Australia’s beautiful landscapes and its harsh seasons and weather.…

    • 443 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The period of modernism in the literature has brought the new forms and the new ways of expressing the ideas. With the development of the imagist movement in the poetry, the free verse and the clarity of expression as well as clear language came to the foreground. The poem “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams is one of the best examples of true imagist poem since it places value on the simplicity of the created image and on the imagery in general, instead of prioritizing some abstract ideas and sophisticated words. The most important point in the poem is the picture of the farm that arises in front of the reader and is created by only 14 words. This simple and still engaging scene on the farm is, however, more than just a description of the rainy day, considering the sense that the author has placed in his visual images and the form of the poem.…

    • 838 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    People are often caught between two cultures, and their self-identity is altered. In the first part of the poem, Song discusses the limitations of the women peasants in…

    • 934 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It’s like the green fields are affected by leprosy. The poet is angry for such heinous attitude of the British towards the slaves of the seventeenth century. And he bids farewell to the good old days with the introduction of the British Imperialism. But this system didn’t last long when the poet mentions, “Deciduous beauty prospered and is gone, But where the lawn breaks in a rash of trees.” As the British Empire got involved in immoral colonial slavery, the system lacked proper authority to ensure effective administration which resulted in its decay and loss.…

    • 874 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Texts are deliberately crafted by composers in response to their contexts, either political, historical or cultural, composers develop their desire to construct their personal representation of the landscape to allow responders to perceive the nature in ways they do. The representation between landscape and poet is portrayed in, the romanticised poem, “Train Journey” by Judith Wright, the post colonisation poem, “Flame Tree in a Quarry” by Judith Wright and the outback painting of the effects of post European Colonisation, “Emus in a Landscape” by Russell Drysdale. These three texts convey the importance of a beneficial relationship between man and nature as a means of gaining a positive perception on the beauties of nature. Furthermore,…

    • 1643 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays