Julie Watson Nungarrayi’s ‘Sorry!’ and the Representation of the Plight of Native People

Running head: IMAGINATIVE NARRATIVE WRITING
JULIE WATSON NUNGARRAYI’S ‘SORRY!’ AND THE REPRESENTATION OF
THE PLIGHT OF NATIVE PEOPLE
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

1IMAGINATIVE NARRATIVE WRITING
Julie Watson Nungarrayi’s poem “Sorry!” was published in her famous anthology of
poems, named, “Inside Black Australia: An Anthology of Aboriginal Poetry”. A common
feature between the peom “Sorry!” and the other poems of this famous anthology of poems is
the common theme of the majority of these poems, that is, the subjugation as well as
marginals that the aboriginals have to receive at the hand of the settlers not only in the nation
of Australia but also in the other parts of the world as well. This becomes apparent from the
lines of the poem ‘Sorry!’ wherein the poet mourns the loss of the different ethic groups or
the tribes of aboriginals in the words “Gone are those proud hunters, the women digging
mata.....Tiny painted animals”.
The poem is primarily concerned with the representation of the subjugation,
oppression and the ultimate extinction that the different ethnic groups like the Nylyapali men
and others have to face in the nations in which they had dwelled for more than 60,000 years.
As a matter of fact, it is seen that the message which Nungarrayi is driving to convey to the
readers is both literal as well as figurative in meaning. In this regard, it needs to be said that
the poet has adopted both an angry tone as well as a mournful one in the poem because of the
content that he is shedding light on and the general mood of the poem is that of mourning or
loss. More importantly, it is seen that the poet takes the help of a nightmarish or a grotesque
imagery so as to highlight the inhumane acts which had been committed against the
aboriginals and the effect that this is on the same.
I would like to say that the poem under discussion and the theme that it highlights
reminds me of a personal experience or more appropriately of an afternoon that I spent at the
Uluru National Park with my parents. Firstly, I would begin by saying that I was very hesitant
about going to the Uluru National Park since the concerned park highlights the culture and
the traditions of the aboriginal people of the Australia. However, my parents insisted that I
would enjoy visiting the park and at the same time would be able to learn new things about