Literary Analysis: Cultural Heritage in Sally Morgan's 'My Place'

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of Sally Morgan's 'My Place', focusing on its context, characters, and central message. The analysis highlights Morgan's exploration of her family's past and her experiences growing up with a hidden Aboriginal heritage. Key characters such as Sally's mum, dad, Jill, and Miss Roberts are examined to understand their roles in shaping Sally's identity and her journey of self-discovery. The essay also discusses the challenges faced by Aboriginal children during that era, including cultural identity issues and the impact of historical policies. The central message emphasizes the importance of understanding and accepting indigenous identity, even amidst painful historical realities. This document is available on Desklib, a platform offering study tools and solved assignments for students.

My place Sally Morgan
1990 Analysis

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Context........................................................................................................................................3
characters.....................................................................................................................................3
Central message..........................................................................................................................6

Introduction
The plot is based on analysing the context of MY place book. It was written by sally Morgan in
year 1987. it is related with Morgan's quest for knowledge of past of her family and the fact that
she grew up in false pretences. It is a milestone of aboriginal literature and is the arleirs works of
indigenous writing. The main context of the books is about the way a young aboriginal group is
growing up in false heritage and does not understand where is she from, there is analysis of the
way Morgan faced several challenge that includes fittings in social, living normal life,
acceptance in university and living life without father. It is a autobiographical account of the
sally Morgan discovery of the family indigenous roots.
Context
The main context of the sally Morgan is based on the aspects that she was not able to express
herself in front of her parents, friends or teachers. At school she was even discouraged to express
herself through her art because researcher actually failed to see her individual style. It took her
lot of time to research her family history further that lead to discovery of individual identify that
was based on aboriginal aspects. It lead to discovering the meaning of her images and she was
able to gain the required confidence to pick up her paints again. There is analysis of the real life
characteristics and the story of author is reflecting the way aboriginal children used to face
several difficulties in that era of growing and learning.
characters
a. Sally’s mum - Sally's mum is expected to be a loving mother who is taking acre
of her family . There are some of the statements of sally such as “I was certain
mum would never leave me in such a dreadful place” that revealed sally's
believed that her mother is a loving individual who takes care of her family.
Further her others statements” Mum provided steady income with part time jobs”
described the mothers actions and the readers are able to learn that her mother is a
responsible woman who is offering her family with basic love and care that they
need.
b. Sally – Sally Morgan is a Australian aboriginal writer that is depicting about her
childhood from the perspective of not knowing about her identity. Sally recounts
various events from her life. As a child she was always refrained from answering,

analysing or questioning them. Her statements like “where do we come from”?
Clearly depicts that she was al;ways willing to known about her existence and the
country to which they belongs.
c. Sally’s dad – Sally dad was a different kind of personality who was disinterested
in everything and some of the statements made by sally clearly depict this
situation. Such as she said “Dad didn't seem to be interested in my schooling
either. He never asked me how I was going or whether there were some
problems.” it analyses that there was no proper communication or support that
way provided to sally from her father. In fact he was always into the scenario of
legacy of the way. That as particularly one from the time of Italian Partisans had
shelter her dad from the Germans. Dad taught sally to sign the communist anthem
in Italian. But he was suffering from medical situation which affected his health in
long term. It lead to difficulties in her mental and physical situation that actually
worsen up with time,. He used to remain in hospital. As per sally the longest time
period he was at home at a particular time was only three months. He used to
seem alright for a specific time period but his health rapidly deteriorated. He used
to drink heavily and lead to soon in hospital. He was not able to support his
family mentally or financially. As the statements” whenever at time he retuned
from the hospital, he had to try and find another job”. Is reflecting the situation
where
d. Jill - The first appearance of Jill for sally is very cheerful, as she in the perfect
moment when she waved happily towards sally. She initially used to watch the
jill's behaviour with other students and who were all strangers. There was a
friendly environment that was created for sally because of jill. Jill was a jolly
natured person who helped in the process of dealing with the negativity and issues
that were arising for sally in her school. The statements of sally that depicted that
Jill, Bill and UI loved rude songs,. We often marched around by signing of such
songs. All this lead to a scenario where it lead readers to understand that there was
highly pitched and a sort of sound that was maintaining in a recognisable tone.
e. Miss Roberts: The character of miss Roberts emerge as a strict teacher. The
statements made by sally that “has Miss Roberts ever been in the army Mum?. “

clearly indicates that she was very stiff and straight at the same time. Further it
was discovered by Sally that Miss Roberts have been associated with Indian
army. She was a rude as she made sally realised that she was different from other
children. She always used to insult sally for not able to pronounce properly or
because of difficulty in the she used to say or speak. The incident that took place
once in class lead to declining confidence for sally. It clearly reflects that
aboriginal women actually receive very less support scenario from the non
aboriginal women. That lead to heightening of the traumatic effects. She was not
there to support or help sally in the way she was trying to cope up with the
difficulties faced in the process of learning and education. She motivated sally
when she told everyone in front of whole class that for first time sally managed to
complete her test correctly as she was on the only one who has done so. She
pushed sally for her greatness of achievement but at same time just after that she
saw sally to be anxious enough of not being able to cope up with the increased
anxiety and less self confidence.

Central message
The central message is based that there were many people who grew up in the era of
“living under the act”, where Australia had laws that only disposed aboriginal people of their
culture, traditions and land. They forceful removed children and did not allows to raise them in
effect they owned them and treated similar to slaves. The writer clearly depicts the way there
were region strategies adopted in the past and document the history, traditions of new era where
the main object was to link across the cultural depth and define the indemnity in the way
aboriginal groups will share and educate the Australian community at large. The story is
presented in such a way that it is depicting the idea of learning in past and accepting of the
indigenous identify though it is painful. The book clearly analyses the way sally Morgan has
tried to eliminate her personal feelings of revenge and bitterness as much as possible to deal with
her account of hopeful and objective. The main issues have been the problems that white women
address never accommodated the problem of aboriginal women based on the differences.

References
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