Requiem for a Beast Essay
Requiem for a Beast Essay
By Nicola Jude
Images can have a powerful effect on the way a person perceives a story. It can be the line that connects two dots together and adds a visual emotion to just a plain text. Matt Ottley’s multimodal text, Requiem for a Beast, uses illustrations, music, text and changes in point of view to highlight the major themes that develop throughout the text. Themes such as reconciliation and the Stolen Generation are explored and the hardships that the Aboriginal people endured are present as well. The Stolen Generation is interpreted as a time when Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their homes and then taken under custody of the Australian Government.
The image on page twenty-one depicts the scene of the boys’ father and friends driving when an Aboriginal boy jumps put at them in hopes to scare them. The use of dull colours makes the reader focus on the Aboriginal boy who has a spotlight on him from the headlights. The photo of the blurry Aboriginal child at the bottom of the page could symbolise that the Aboriginal child was slowly being forgotten or that he was in the back of the boys mind and was a constant memory. It could also tie to the theme of the Stolen Generation as children went missing and became nothing but a blurry memory for their families to remember. Next to the boy is an empty packet of tablets and this could be the illustrator’s way of telling the reader that the boy was depressed and since the background is black that could symbolise nothingness or darkness that the boy feels is engulfing him. The series of images at the top of the page could portray scattered memories that the boy is using the tablets to escape from. An excerpt from page sixty-five “them finding me on my bed, almost gone” gives evidence of the boy wanting an ‘escape’ from the grief he feels and possibly making a suicide attempt to permanently escape the dark places in the depths of his mind.
The Stolen Generation was a vital part
By Nicola Jude
Images can have a powerful effect on the way a person perceives a story. It can be the line that connects two dots together and adds a visual emotion to just a plain text. Matt Ottley’s multimodal text, Requiem for a Beast, uses illustrations, music, text and changes in point of view to highlight the major themes that develop throughout the text. Themes such as reconciliation and the Stolen Generation are explored and the hardships that the Aboriginal people endured are present as well. The Stolen Generation is interpreted as a time when Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their homes and then taken under custody of the Australian Government.
The image on page twenty-one depicts the scene of the boys’ father and friends driving when an Aboriginal boy jumps put at them in hopes to scare them. The use of dull colours makes the reader focus on the Aboriginal boy who has a spotlight on him from the headlights. The photo of the blurry Aboriginal child at the bottom of the page could symbolise that the Aboriginal child was slowly being forgotten or that he was in the back of the boys mind and was a constant memory. It could also tie to the theme of the Stolen Generation as children went missing and became nothing but a blurry memory for their families to remember. Next to the boy is an empty packet of tablets and this could be the illustrator’s way of telling the reader that the boy was depressed and since the background is black that could symbolise nothingness or darkness that the boy feels is engulfing him. The series of images at the top of the page could portray scattered memories that the boy is using the tablets to escape from. An excerpt from page sixty-five “them finding me on my bed, almost gone” gives evidence of the boy wanting an ‘escape’ from the grief he feels and possibly making a suicide attempt to permanently escape the dark places in the depths of his mind.
The Stolen Generation was a vital part