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Chapter 13
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Remembering Babylon, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Racism and Xenophobia
Gender and Power
Community and Insularity
Coming of Age
Colonialism and Property
Summary
Analysis
Over the months since Gemmy’s arrival, Mr. Frazer makes painstaking observations and detailed illustrations of each plant and root Gemmy teaches him about. Amidst his notes, Frazer writes that he believes that the settlers are wrong about Australia: it is not a harsh, unfriendly territory that must be dominated to produce sustenance—the native peoples thrive without cultivating by using their knowledge of the land, which is itself naturally abundant with food. The settlers should, he thinks, “humble ourselves and learn from them.” The settlers must change themselves, rather than the landscape, and Gemmy thus is a “forerunner” in Frazer’s opinion, a hybrid of European and Australian characteristics that make him the ideal specimen to exist in such a world.
Mr. Frazer, aside from being Gemmy’s friend and supporter, functions within the narrative to suggest an alternative form of colonialism, one which embraces the naturalism of the Aboriginal Australians. It is worth noting that although the story is generally critical of colonialism and the author often questions its presuppositions, it never outright rejects colonialism. Instead, the author suggests a healthier, less destructive model that perhaps would have had less disastrous impact on the indigenous people. However, when this book was written in the 1990s, domineering British colonialism had already had its ruinous effect.
Themes
Mr. Frazer thinks back to when he tried to explain this concept to Jim Sweetman, who “for all his lack of imagination, was the best of them.” One day, Frazer finds Jim Sweetman playing with his granddaughter and tries to share his vision, offering him a small native fruit. Sweetman, however, is skeptical and does not taste the fruit, being more concerned with his fussy granddaughter’s antics. Frazer is disheartened, realizing that if Jim Sweetman is not interested, none of the other settlers will be either. He resolves to present his vision to someone with more authority and begins organizing his notes into a report.
By testing Mr. Frazer’s hypothesis against the settlement’s most decent man, the author criticizes his own alternative proposition for how the colonization of Australia could have been done: the settlers of the time are simply too set in their ways, unable to conceive of building a new society in any manner unfamiliar to them. This is especially true given the arduous life of the settlers and their daily demands, as represented here by the granddaughter.
Themes
Mr. Frazer watches his wife reading sheet music, hearing the score in her mind. They do not have the money for an instrument in Australia. His wife does not share his passion for botany, and he likewise does not share her interest in political economy or her longing for their adult children. Although there is a quiet distance between them, and though “she is cleverer than he is but does not make him feel it,” she has supported his journey even when it took her away from her children, knowing that her husband is searching for a “revelation.”
Mr. Frazer’s wife appears only in this scene, functioning primarily to illustrate that her husband’s passion for botany and idealistic quest leave him rather withdrawn and detached from the rest of life—demonstrated by his lack of interest in their children—and particularly from their small community. Although Mr. Frazer escapes the insularity and racism of the other settlers in this way, he also loses the capacity to participate in the life of the settlement.
Themes
As they are preparing for bed, Mr. Frazer’s wife tells her husband about Gemmy’s visitors and the men who attacked him in the night, all of which Frazer is completely unaware of. Frazer’s wife agrees with her husband that Gemmy is harmless, but since the settlers fear him so much, he is still at risk. Accordingly, Jim Sweetman’s wife has arranged for Gemmy to live with Mrs. Hutchence, where he will be further from sight and safer. Mr. Frazer is bothered that none of the settlers thought it worth asking his input.
That Mr. Frazer could be oblivious of so many tumultuous events in their tiny community reinforces the detachment his dreams and passions have fostered. Again, while this allows Frazer to be untainted by the other settlers’ racism and derision towards Gemmy, it also keeps him from participating in his neighbors’ lives or having any say in the community’s dealings. Frazer dilemma here suggests that there is an inherent trade-off between being an individualist and being an active part of a community.
Themes
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