Title: Dick the Poet: "Allegorical Tendencies" in 'Robbery Under Arms'
Abstract: I thought I saw how stories this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralysed much my own religion since childhood. [. . .] The whole subject was associated with lowered voices; almost as if were something medical. But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could.- C. S. Lewis, Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What's to be SaidROLF BoLDREWOOD's NOVEL ROBBERY UNDER ARMS IS KNOWN for its action, adventure and frank depiction life in Australia during gold rush. It is also known for its didacticism, which critics tend to find disagreeable (Green 257; Rosenberg 488; Dowsley 75; Turner 240). Despite this recognition, scholarship that explores novel's didactic nature is limited to religious scholars like Veronica Brady, who gests that Dick's narrative represents a surrender to cultural norms rather than an allegory symbolizing a genuine spiritual transformation (41). This paper, however, seeks to create a discussion that will draw out Christian-centered tendencies in Robbery Under Arms.The basic construct Robbery Under Arms is that Dick ston, narrator, is in jail awaiting execution on charges murder. The novel represents Dick's final thoughts, a kind memoir recounting his life from boyhood and depicting a gradual descent into a life crime for him and his brother Jim: stealing cattle, robbing mail coaches, and holding up banks. Near end narrative Jim is shot and killed, and novel's lesson becomes clear when Dick compares fate Marstons with that their neighbor, George Storefield, who through his honesty, thrift, and hard work becomes a wealthy, respected pillar community. Ultimately, Dick's own life is spared because kindness and loyalty his friends and neighbors, allowing him to repent and become an honest man. In this way, Dick's life seems to parallel a Christian conversion story and novel could be read as a Christian allegory.While Northrop Frye posits that any reading that attaches meaning to images is allegory (89), there is an allegorical tradition, which, in part, owes popularity to tian theology (Quilligan 19). According to Bloomfield, this legorical tradition was adopted in England after 597 CE. (73), and critics agree that this influence can be read in a variety texts including Beowulf, The Faerie Queene, Piers Plowman, and in works Shakespeare, Charles Dickens and J.R.R. Tolkien. The tradition found roots in Australia as well, and, apart Robbery Under Arms, an exploration Christian symbolism has been discussed by scholars in works Patrick White, cus Clarke, Sally Morgan, Joseph Furphy, Thomas Keneally, Adam Lindsay Gordan, Henry Handel Richardson, and more recently L. Furze-Morrish. There has also been a survey religious attitudes among Australian writers 1890s by Zaunbrecher and work by Elaine Stuart Lindsay dealing with Christian themes in a specifically feminist context.1 Thus, a reading Robbery Under Arms as a Christian allegory would build on this long-standing discussion.The definition allegory, Rollinson argues, is saying one thing but meaning something else (16), and basic question an allegory is to determine context of reference to which verbal expression being interpreted was probably intended to apply (22). Christian allegory, in words St. Augustine Hippo, is meant to teach and disseminate the true Word God to a wide authence for sake furthering cause Church . . . and [there is] a need for . . . deliberate obscurity to ensure that authence which received message was worthy and able to understand it (qtd. in Pendergast 13). …
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-06-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
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