Reflection on Australian Literature: Childhood's Impact on Worldview

This assignment presents a student's reflection on Australian literature, specifically focusing on David Malouf's 'The Great World' and the character Digger Keen. The reflection addresses the prompt: 'Childhood experiences shape our view of the world'. The student analyzes how Keen's childhood influences his behavior and worldview, contrasting it with the experiences of Vic Curran. The reflection draws upon the novel to demonstrate how early life experiences, such as parental influences and environmental factors, contribute to shaping an individual's character, resilience, and interactions with others. The analysis considers themes of friendship, trauma, and the impact of war, supported by references to the provided texts and relevant scholarly sources. This discussion board post demonstrates an understanding of the course material, the historical context, and the key concepts of the assignment.

Running Head: Reflection 0
Reflection
August 6
2019

Reflection 1
Reflection of Book
It is the story about an unlikely friendship between two persons who were working for the
Australian army together but later on they become the prisoner of war at Japan. Both of them
were kept in brutal conditions and they were treated like inhumane. Both of them had to work at
the construction of rail line at Burma. At first there was contradiction due to difference in their
nature. Digger Keen had a calm, reserved and quiet nature, while Vic Curran was the person with
aggressive nature. It was very complex and difficult to have any relation between both of them. It
is in human behavior that people who are different in their characteristics, their thinking ability,
methods of working, way to handle the situation, decision making ability are totally different, the
chances of the clashes amongst them are very obvious. However the situation after the war and
the issues which they both were facing in Japan together become the reason and unite them. A
person can hardly change his/her characteristics but they can be controlled and they can be
managed with the time and situation. In the story where at once both the person but later on
when the feelings of both the person starts getting interconnected with each other bond of their
friendship which is still well known in Australia. Both of the characters were reflected as humble
humans (Mukherjee, 2019). The story defines the connection between the person as well as
family when both men survived in japan which was hauntingly where they were kept as
prisoners.
Impact of childhood experience to our world
Many of the people do not remember first two or three years of the life but the experience which
are faced at the time of the early childhood are stick with everyone for the whole life. According
to the novel ‘Great World’ both the characters were different with their behavior and nature. The
reason behind their behavior was their childhood experiences spend with their parents. At one
side Digger keen who was the person with the calm nature he was concerned for the testaments
of outside world because of his father who taught who tells the story to young digger about the
experience of the outside world. He always remember the connection between the real life
experience which he faced and the stories which were told by his father. On the other hand Vic
who lives in the town which was almost not suitable for living as it was near to sea. After the
death of his mother he found himself alone because father of Vic was addicted to alcoholism,
rage and negativity. In contrast with digger keen Vic was found in the lack of meaningful

Reflection 2
guidance. The childhood experience of Vic leads him towards aggression and violent nature.
With the review of the novel it is defined that the learning which an individual get in the
childhood impact on the future aspects (Newell, 2019).

Reflection 3
Reflection
Mukherjee, R., 2019. A Poet and No-Poet: Exile, Silence and the Growth of the Eco-critical
Subject in David Malouf’s an imaginary life. IJELLH (International Journal of English
Language, Literature in Humanities), 7(4), pp.20-20.
Newell, Q.D., 2019. Apocalypse Here: Reading the Natural World in Native American Mormon
Visions. American Studies, 58(1), pp.5-24.