Introduction
Literature uses numerous devices to render objective reality and add artistic taste and color to it, among which integration of fiction and reality, i. e. metafictional strategies is paramount. Peter Carey is skillful at usage of them in True History of the Kelly Gang all in order to make the work as realistic as possible but to preserve its artistic value as well. Major ideas of the book and metafictional strategies used by its author are main focuses of this paper which is going to find out the reality and fiction in Carey’s story about one of the national heroes of the Australian people.
Context
The context of the book under consideration is the formation of the national identity of the Australian people. The late 19th century was the time when Australia, although still the British colony, started to rise against foreign rule and criminals who acted against governmental legislations were considered to be heroes among the ordinary citizens. The national spirit, together with the beliefs in “Robin Hood” who could make their lives happier, people admired criminals of those times, and Ned Kelly became a kind of the national hero and symbol of the Australian struggle for independence:
The story of the Irish Australian bushranger Ned Kelly has become paradigmatic for the selective retelling of history as folk legend, and for the ideological processes by which social memory may be reworked into the fabric of a nation’s founding cultural myths (Huggan 142).
Plot
The story itself develops in the last half of the 19th century in Australia, and is delivered by Ned Kelly from the first person. Ned was a son of a criminal, John “Red” Kelly who was imprisoned in Van Diemen’s Land and after doing his time moved to the Australian colony of Victoria. Here, he was also imprisoned never to come back from the jail. Red Kelly died in prison: “I lost my own father at 12 yrs. of age and know what it is to be raised on lies and silences…” (Carey 7).
Since 12 Ned Kelly was brought up by his mother and took up the criminal pathway that allowed him not to know what famine was, but also led Ned to the term in prison for a fabricated accusation. Ned came back from the prison to take up the criminal life and take revenge on the regime that tortured him and his compatriots and made his mother scream in despair: “God help us Jimmy what did we ever do to them that they should torture us like this?” (Carey 9). His mother had to suffer more when police captured her and Ned’s sister trying to blackmail the hero and make him give up.
Major Ideas
Among the major ideas of the book written by Peter Carey such points can be singled out as the protests against the national oppression and anti-national torture, desire to develop one’s life into something big from the combination of miserable experiences of poverty, famine and overall disgrace. Thus, Ned Kelly is simultaneously the antagonist and the protagonist of the story who combines the features of a good guy helping others and a criminal violating laws and disrespecting the rules and norms of the society:
Moreover, it seems reasonable to believe that Ned Kelly’s very style as a bushranger was influenced by a folk tradition going back to the Irish rapparees of the eighteenth century, which emphasised defiance of the rich and powerful, generosity to the poor and courtesy toward women, as well as physical valour and moral uprightness (Reece 159).
Thus, the book is to a great extent the manifestation of the hardships that the representatives of numerous ethnic groups that inhabited Australia had to suffer from the British colonial rule and the stereotypes that ruled the society. Ned Kelly, as a descendant of Irish people who were imprisoned in Australia, which was the area where all the criminals, thieves and murderers were sent, and his life developed not in an easy way. Writing his memories, in the form of which the whole book by Carey is presented, Ned Kelly was sorry about what he did but explained it by the cruelty of the society that made him into a criminal. He witnessed cruelty of British tyranny from the early childhood and grew up to fight it:
Tis not poverty I hate the most nor the eternal groveling but the insults which grow on it which not even leeches can cure. (Carey 8).
. Addressing his future daughter, whom he never had in reality, Kelly hoped that she would understand his deeds asking her to “comprehend the injustice we poor Irish suffered in this present age” (Carey 7). Ned Kelly was an Irish and this was one of the leading motivations for him to stand against his oppressors till the last drop of his blood:
We know how much it meant to him, because on the last free day of his life, at the siege of Glenrowan, he was wearing this same green sash under the armour. It tells us so much, perhaps tells us a lot more than the armour (Carey 2001).
Metafictional Strategies
As it is clear from the plot of the book and scholarly articles by Huggan (2002) and Reece (2004), the metafic5tional strategies are mostly comprised of combination of facts about Kelly with fictional elements like creating the characters of Kelly’s daughter and wife, and of course the first person narration which is presented as if by Kelly himself:
The problem of imagining Ned Kelly is that we have these fragments of the story that we know so well, almost like the Stations of the Cross in a way. There’s this bit and that bit and that bit. But we really have no idea what happened between this bit and that bit. And of course what is between the fragments is a man’s whole life, 90% of it. Incredible. So there’s a huge pleasure in imagining the 90% that is consistent with the 10% of fragments. In following this, in interrogating the fragments, it doesn’t contradict the known ‘facts’. (Carey 2001).
However, the author made it possible for the reader to be sure about the accuracy of the data presented. The inexperienced readers were sure that they read the genuine manuscripts of the letters Ned Kelly had written as the testimony to his future daughter. To achieve this, the strategy of first person narration was used by the author of the book. Moreover, picturing Ned Kelly as a positive hero was also a fictional strategy to some extent. The person who was labeled as “devil incarnate of the Antipodes, Satan’s right hand, our Mephisto, the Vulture of the Wombat ranges, beast of prey, outback monster…” (Huggan 142) is portrayed by Carey as a father loving his daughter and a husband loving his wife.
The next strategy used by Carey was the implementation of colloquial speech, contractions and offensive words that are usually used by people in day-to-day life but omitted from literary works. Having the public opinion about Kelly as about the half-educated man knowing oral tradition better than written literary language, Carey supposed that his memories could have been written using the above mentioned language units. The abrupt ending of Kelly’s narration at the moment when he is captured by police is also the metafictional strategy creating the feeling of reality and real-time events described in the book. And, of course, the allusion to the socio-political events that took place in Australia makes the story look natural and be rather popular among readers who appreciate the ability of the author to blur the line between fiction and reality. Carey managed to depict the situation in Australia in time when the events of his book take place, and also coped with the assignment to integrate the personal feelings and experiences of Ned Kelly into the full complicated picture of socio-political state of the postcolonial Australia of the late 19th century:
Kelly’s private battle against the authority of the colonial state has long since been overshadowed by a highly public struggle–one that continues to have relevance in postcolonial Australia–taking place over the conflicted memories that are embodied in his name (Huggan 142).
Conclusion
To conclude, the metafictional strategies used by Peter Carey in his book are successful trying to blur the line between the real facts about Ned Kelly and the imagination of the author who had to add his own ideas due to the lack of objective information about this person. These strategies include use of fictional subjects and characters, picturing Kelly as a father and peaceful citizens, as well as use of colloquialisms, contractions, offensive words and other signs of lively narration created by an ordinary person without higher education and knowledge in grammar. Besides, abrupt ending of the narration, its continuation by another speaker and many other strategies create the impression that the book under consideration was written by its main hero himself.
Works Cited
Carey, Peter. True History of the Kelly Gang. St. Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 2001.
Carey, Peter. State Library of Victoria,Interview, unsigned. Melbourne: Age, 2001.
Corfield, Justin. 2003. The Ned Kelly Encyclopaedia. Melbourne: Lothian.
Smith, Rosalind. Dark Places: True Crime Writing in Australia. University of Newcastle, 2007.