- Title
- The myth and reality of Point Puer
- Creator
- Ramsland, John
- Relation
- History of Education & Children's Literature Vol. 3, Issue 1, p. 111-116
- Relation
- http://www.hecl.it
- Publisher
- Universita degli Studi di Macerata, Edizioni Universita di Macerata
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2008
- Description
- While childhood history is neglected, troubled childhoods and the disenchantment of the child’s world have long been themes in Australian literature. They were glanced at in Marcus Clarke’s 1874 novel 'For the Term of His Natural Life', in his treatment of boys at Point Puer, Port Arthur. Clarke took his readers back to Port Arthur, that atypical penal institution of the convict era. Its buildings were designed to impose classification and solitary confinement to evoke the reformist notions of the modern penitentiary. The intention was to re-shape the criminal mind. Clarke stresses the futility of Point Puer’s original plan of repressive and harsh discipline, and rightly so. Yet there was the other side of the coin. After Governor Arthur’s departure in 1836, a more re-educational approach was pursued. It was never fully successful, but it did provide a capable form of trade-training in pursuits that could have led to the economic workforce of the developing colonial economy. Clarke’s novel has become an all-pervading phenomenon. Through other fiction, non-fiction, school history texts and feature films, the legend that he created has lasted to the present day. The novel has remained a source to be mined and plundered. Its latest manifestation arrived in Choe Hooper’s thriller 'A Child’s Book of True Crime' set on the modern-day Tasman’s Peninsula. The legend of Point Puer and its suicidal boys that Clarke created on a few pages remains a beacon that blinks intermittently, but ever so brightly in popular culture.
- Subject
- Marcus Clarke; convict boys; Port Arthur; For the Term of His Natural Life
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/39761
- Identifier
- uon:4491
- Identifier
- ISSN:1971-1093
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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