Judith Wright

English essay: Judith Wright

Judith Wright, born in the country town of Armidale, but grew to become one of the most influential modern thinkers through her poetry. Wright writes poems that expand further than just love, she wrote poems expressing the issues that deal with the spiritual and cultural fracture. Her views of the disintegrating culture and the physical environment surrounding her world are portrayed through the various techniques. These elements of techniques are such as Wright’s idea for her poems; the battle between the surfer and the waves that she observed and her poem reflecting the past in “South of My Days”. The comparisons of nature and people in the poem “Bora Ring” and of the human progress and nature in “Sanctuary” successfully show the difference between one definite race of domination, to the co-existence of both nature and man. The sound techniques Wright used to slow or fasten the pace of the poem; and the structure of the poem that can show rhymes, and portray the idea successfully.

The Idea of Wright’s poem shows the complex mind of Judith Wright, her idea of nature and cultural disintegration to make way for the human progress. Wright’s main idea of the road representing the human progress, and how the nature and the surroundings that was destroyed for the sake of the progress of the road. The symbolisation of the human progress by the road has been described as in conflict with the surrounding environment and is still “sweeping” through. The description of the road as “like a long fuse laid” shows that the road (human progress) connects everywhere, yet potentially destructive hence the word used “fuse”. The contradiction between the title of the poem “Sanctuary” and its idea of the destroying of nature is misleading, although the poet still gave hope in the fourth stanza; the line “and meaning love, perhaps they are a prayer.” Shows the poet giving the reader’s hope of man’s co-existence with the nature, instead of viewing is as a force to be conquered, or dominated. This idea of her poem portrays her thoughts of the nature being destroyed, for the selfishness of the human race and for their own progress through time.

Her techniques of comparing man and nature help the poem to thrive in a way of one race or kind to replace another. Wright’s poem “Bora Ring” describes a ring in the ground that was used by the Aboriginals for ceremonies and especially initiations, old and is described as “lost” and “forgotten” and the nature being the only reminder as “Only the grass stands up to mark the dancing ring”. Her comparison of nature and people by the personification of the nature as since the death of the Aboriginal dancers, the nature has replaced them as “The apple-gums posture and mime a past corroboree, murmur a broken chant” the words “posture”, “mime” and “murmur” are words used for the nature to be personified. Throughout the poem, in the last stanza, a white man was described to have ridden past and stopped at the site of the old Bora ring feeling a presence “that the rider’s heart halts at a sightless shadow” giving a sense of fear felt by the white man, and guilt for killing not only the aboriginal people, but also their culture and way. Wright’s comparison of the Bora ring and the aboriginal dancers, whom are вЂ?in the earth’ being replaced by the nature surrounding the ring, and the guilt felt by the white man riding past shows how the European settlement have destroyed the aboriginal culture.

Wright also used sound techniques in her poems, to create effects to receive the desired response(s) from the readers. The alliteration of “he” in “heart halts” from “Bora ring” gives an effect of fear felt by the rider, as he is aware of the presence of the gone aboriginals, the assonance acquired by the repetition of “ee” in “Dream the world breathed sleeping” gives a lulling effect to the sound, creating a relaxing and resting environment. The alliteration of “mortal/masterful” and “frail/gulls” gives an effect that adds a lightness of menace in “The surfer” poem’s atmosphere. The use of