AustLit

'In this thesis I argue that the image of a child lost in the bush became a central strand in the Australian colonial experience, creating a cultural legacy that remains to this day. I also argue that the way in which the image developed in Australia was unique among British-colonised societies. I explore the dominant themes of my thesis the nature of childhood, the effect of environment upon colonisers, and the power of memory primarily through stories. The bush-lost child is an image that developed mainly in the realms of "low" culture, in popular journals, newspapers, stories and images including films, although it has been represented in such "high" cultural forms as novels, art and opera. I have concentrated on the main forms of its representations because it is through these that the image achieves its longevity. Understandings of childhood have always been central to the power of the image of the bush-lost child. I examine the development of attitudes towards children and childhood in Australia from the earliest days of settlement to the beginning of the First World War, through several main strands of children"s experiences work, education and health. The story and image of the "Babes in the Wood" was brought to Australia with its colonial settlers. I trace its development and assimilation into the folklore culture of Britain from the late sixteenth century to the nineteenth century, and consider other European influences. It was adopted from the parent culture by European settlers to represent an Australian colonial experience and was then progressively translated into the assertively Australian image of "Bush-lost Babies". I consider other comparable settler colonies in America, Canada and New Zealand to develop my argument that the identification with the lost child image was unique to Australia, and that the other settler-colonies were dominated by the image of the captive child. This examines the power of cross-culturally transmitted attitudes towards Indigenous peoples in Britain and its colonies, including Australia. The bush search scenario, and the way in which it came to be regarded as an affirmation of community, were rapidly associated with the image of the bush-lost child. I examine this development primarily through close studies of several different lost-child incidents. Various memorialisations of bush-lost children fitted into the wider process of memorialising the past in Australia. My consideration of this involves an exploration of expressions of grief at the loss of young people before World War I, and the change in national understandings of loss after this time. The 1960 story of "Little Boy Lost", which received intense national attention, forms the core of the concluding chapter in which I argue for the continuing currency of the bush-lost child image in modern Australia. '

Source: Author's abstract, University of Melbourne ePrints Repository, http://eprints.unimelb.edu.au/archive/00000767/
Sighted: 17/08/2005