Secret River Speech

Power and powerlessness, how is it to be perceived or gained? Do the origins of each have their origins in your own mental resilience or your lineage? And what answers to these fundamental questions lie in the dramatically persuasive language of Kate Grenville's Secret River and Claude McKay's White City? The answer has to be a resounding, Yes!" Secret River   and White City encodes the essence of power in a telling exposition of the tensions coexisting in personal power and class stratification.

Personal power is explored contextually and thematically through both the novel and poem. In each, the vivid use of language draws out and conceptualises the potential of strength, hope and resilience to make the ordinary individual a discoverer of the meaning of life. Grenvile investigates the substance of this power through William Thornhill and his arduous life. “He swore to himself that he would be the best apprentice, the strongest, quickest, cleverest.” The use of asyndeton declares his hope for his life and creates a relation between his hard work and his potential for supremacy.   Grenville use of forceful words to gives Thornhill a confident tone of a man possessed of inner strength. She brings him to utter “It was pointless to complain about the weather as it was to complain that he had been born in Tanners court.” The repetition of “complain” emphasises the ideology that to become powerful he must access self-empowerment. In Sydney there is again desideratum for a piece of land: “Land becomes a private thing a bead of warmth in his heart.” The use of imagery conveys the importance - and passion- of his hope and the ability of this hope to support his achievement of his aspirations. By the end of his journey, however, Thornhill's personal power is reduced to zero resulting in regret. “He puts his telescope down with hollow feeling. Too late, too late.” The repetition of “too late” gives emphasise on his remorse. Although it does not result in a physical loss of...