Writing Place

Pat

This essay was packed with great insights. I really liked the way you used it to reflect on a no. of the readings and ideas we discussed throughout the semester, making them relevant to your own thoughts on Port Arthur. I also think you successfully wove your own memories into your broader discussion of Tasmanians’ views of the place. There was still something a but unfocused about your material, however - the paper seemed to need some streamlining of its structure to me. (You say very late in your essay, for example, that your most significant point was potentially the relationship beween the collective memory of a place and the place itself. If this was the case, why not introduce that point at the beginning and develop it more clearly throughout?).

I also felt that you needed to explain the relationship between Tasmanians’ ‘guilt complex’ about their dark past and their (your) excitement about accounts of Port Arthur’s past brutality. The fact that you and your brother and generations of Tasmanian schoolkids thrilled to stories about Port Arthur shows that there hasn’t simply been a ‘blind eye’ approach to its convict history. Guilt and a desire to ignore past horrors and a desire to brag about them at the same time all seem to be bound together in the pre-1996 approach to Port Arthur. More exploration of this complex relationship, and how it was further complicated by the Bryant massacre, would have been interesting here.

Regards, Melissa