Memory

Whitechapel’s greatest battle is eventually against his own memory. He feels he has lived too long, seen too much and that memory is simply pain resurfacing. He aims to bury the memory. In a comparison he says that memory is like crying, an event that he described as being able to take over, shake and the thump the body. Memory has taken a toll on his body, his eyes have seen too much and his head is too heavy, he craves rest. Other memories he has long buried; memories of Africa are scarce and dreams of the land of his childhood are deliberately discarded even discouraged in others. The destructive element of memories is also seen in Sanders Seniors as memory of his wife drives him into depression and despair leading to his despicable behaviour in raping Cook.

Memories belong to the individuals portrayed within The 7 Stages of Grieving and also to the collective. Some memories like the stories go with Nana, some are passed from generation to generation, a timeline of pain and grief from 1788 until the present. Collected like photographs in the suitcase, stories of family, tradition and culture are held in the memory with the pain of the past. Even when characters escape the situation, the link to the past is still present. Aunty Grace returns from England and although she holds out for some time eventually succumbs to the shared memory of the family and land, emptying her own belongings from the case and filling it with red soil. The only reflections that bring relief are fond memories that involve family; trophies and pendants from sporting achievements are placed in the room with photographs of birthdays. weddings and fun occasions which adorn the walls at Nana’s house. Memories will serve as a constant reminder, a testimony to good times, that it is not all bad, there is always family.

Memory impacts the present in both texts, and torments the protagonists. Each have their own painful memories, death of immediate loved ones, injustices to themselves and those around them. Both the novel and the play depict the idea of a collective memory passing from generation to generation like stories with individual memories, value laden and having an impact on the next generation.

Memory Quotes

Memory hurts. Like crying. But still and deep. Memory rises to the skin then I can’t be touched .… Don’t make me remember. I forget as hard as I can. (Whitechapel) Prologue: Remembering

Memory is pain trying to resurrect itself. (Whitechapel) Epilogue: Forgetting

‘I miss my grandmother. She took so many stories with her to the grave.’ Scene 4

A collection of images appear, depicting the phases of aboriginal history.. Dreaming, Invasion, Genocide, Protection, Assimilation … Scene 18

Grief

Silent grief shapes Whitechapel’s face until he is known as ‘sour face’. He can’t remember when he last laughed. The grief that he suffers from the loss of his wives and his children has taken a toll. Communally, the slaves are impacted by grief; ‘The night was torn apart by their grief’ when Chapel is receiving his lashes. The grieving is expressed simultaneously for the individual as much as for the situation; grief as lashes tear at a boy’s skin and grief at the oppression and disparate power structures that continue to allow it. After Chapel’s death, grief takes over Whitechapel. Halfway through the lashings the boy is gone and Whitechapel’s spirit too has surrendered. The only relief for grief will be death, something that Whitechapel longs for. There is no mention of Lydia’s grief after the death of her friend Chapel. Her grief and Sanders Senior’s, after the death of his wife, are confined to their individual loss.

Individual and collective grief shapes the narrative of the play The 7 Stages of Grieving. Emblematised through the woman who lays sleepless among the sacred things after her children have been stolen, the play shows that grief is as much about loss of culture and tradition as it is about loss of life. When a person passes there is obvious and understandable grief shown by the family. They gather and grieve but the dead person is free to go on, not to be recalled through photographs or mentioning of their name, able to pass, respected, to the next life. However culture is lost forever, like the arm destroying the sand piles representing the irreversible damage of colonialism on Indigenous culture. The grief about loss of culture follows generations. In a similar way, one small event is shown to trigger grief across many. The protest marchers are silent, grieving, after another death in custody. A collective grief is driving them from events that have been imposed upon their culture and life since 1788. Eventually the woman ends the play with the effect of grief overcoming her: ‘Nothing, nothing, I feel nothing.’

The ultimate message conveyed from the exploration of individual and collective grief in both the novel and the play is the cumulative impact of grief. Years of individual grief and generations of collective grief have all taken their toll, physically, emotionally and culturally. The texts concede that grief is a shared human experience, and emphasise the compounding impact of power imbalances, racism and cruelty upon grief.

Grief Quotes

They begged and cried. The night was torn apart by their grief. (about the Slaves) Chapter 1

Too much has happened to put right. I would need another life. (Whitechapel) Epilogue: Forgetting

The eyes see their own death and do not flicker. The mouth tastes death and does not move. (Whitechapel) Epilogue: Forgetting

‘I lie painfully sleepless. In a landscape of things I know are sacred. Watching unsympathetic wanderings.’ Scene 9

‘Our cultures that have been denied us. But we have been taught to cry silently.’ Scene 22

‘Grief, grieving, sorrow loss death pain.’ Scene 2

Equality

Equality in The longest Memory is not just about freedom, it is about having the same status, rights and permissions as any other group. The very fundamentals of slavery and the racist pillars that support the ideology ensure that no slave receives an ounce of equality. The general view is that Africans are an inferior race and that any quality or skill shown is through them mimicking their overseers and owners. Whitechapel finds that even having knowledge of his son’s whereabouts frustrates the plantation owner as it is perceived as a sign that he might be equal. When a young Sanders Junior questions equality, declaring that Whitechapel can tie a knot that his father cannot, it is treated as a joke. Lydia and Chapel are idealistic in their view that Chapel may be equal, spurred on by his success in reading. The key to equality lays hidden in education which is usually forbidden for slaves. Lydia pursues her quest for equality and writes to The Virginian but finds an attitude that is congruent with the majority of society, completely contrasting her own. The only glimmer of hope comes from Mr Whitechapel who sees that equality may be reached in the future however he does little to implement it despite his leniency when dealing with slaves.

The 7 Stages of Grieving covers a struggle for equality that spans hundreds of years. It involves presenting a series of events that highlight inequality such as when it is expressed through racism, as discovered by the Murri girl when getting a dress, ‘special attention’ security and police keep an eye on her based on her ‘black skin’. It involves a fight for equality in education, with the commentary that reconciliation can only be achieved when all people can actually spell the word. Ultimately, as conveyed in the play, equality is not about assimilation or sameness but the equal right to practice culture and one’s own traditions.

Both texts present a world so historically entrenched in inequality that they show little hope for equality. The exceptions seem to come from individuals, such as Lydia and to a lesser degree Mr Whitechapel. Cook is bolstered by seeing Chapel read and refrains from telling her husband in hope that it may lead to equality. In the play, the woman presents the suitcase to the audience offering them a chance to consider equality.

Equality Quotes

Africans may be our inferiors, but they exhibit the same qualities we possess, even if they are merely imitating us. (Mr Whitechapel) Chapter 2

There is no sight so perfidious than that of a white woman and a black man. (Editor, The Virginian) Chapter 11

‘Have you ever been black? You know when you wake up one morning and you’re black?’ Scene 11

‘The one thing that I find comforting about death is that other people die too.’ Scene 6

Family Relationships

Generational differences are explored in The Longest Memory as well as the importance of family. It describes young children laughing and playing, teens running from a beating, older teens fleeing and facing a death penalty, and the few older slaves weary but avuncular toward the younger generations. Family is a refuge for the slaves. Cook sees her family situation after marrying Whitechapel as having saved her, in comparison to the family in the main house. Through her description of two pots we see that family and love are not exclusively reserved for the wealthy or white.

The importance of family is also displayed in the best wishes for the younger generation. Whitechapel seeks to instruct Chapel about the need to conform, to survive. Sanders Senior announces that Sanders Junior will not be an overseer, hoping for something better. Cook does not inform on Chapel and Lydia’s lessons hoping Chapel will be better off than the previous generation. Pressure is applied in the form of restrictions regarding slaves and expectations regarding women at the time. The young rebel Lydia seeks time with Chapel, shunning the clear expectations of her family to passively accept her place in society as a young white woman. Chapel rebels, fuelled by grief over his mother’s death and love for Lydia, shrugging off Whitechapel’s advice and fleeing the plantation.

Family is a central, integral part of life in The 7 Stages of Grieving. The family is large and extended. Hundreds appear when it is time to say final goodbyes to Nana, even Aunty Grace returns from overseas. It is a welcomed relief to the grief of the moment and the ongoing hardships. There is affection for family, enjoying the younger ones who grab a video or play outside, and a genuine caring for brothers with interactions with the law and fathers who are tired and unwell. Family bails a son out of lock-up and there is care about where he will end up. There is a unity in family and extended family. A woman marches with parents, brothers, sisters and Nana; they share the grief, they fight together. There is also sadness as family reflects on life’s impediments and the impact of colonialism. Children are lost to authorities that walk through front doors with violent intentions. Racism is experienced by family members. Sickness and death take loved ones.

Family is the last bastion of equality and often the only refuge in oppressive circumstances. The relationships are often fragile but usually kind and well-meaning. The bonds are strong and hold families together in the midst of trying circumstances. The importance of family is emphasised by the oppression coming from without. Family becomes a source of survival for individuals and a place where culture can flourish.

Family Relationship Quotes

All my life two pots are never empty. One is in the master’s kitchen the other in my own …. Yet my pot is sweeter to me. Sweet to me because I take from it and fill two plates for the people I love … (Cook) Chapter 8

Of love that she did these things and I loved, her back as much as a pest can, who strove to emulate the kindness and love he’s shown. (Chapel, about his mother and Whitechapel) Chapter 5

The woman makes a circle around a pile. ‘And this one here is about culture, family, song, tradition, dance. Have you got that?’ Scene 16

‘My family were in mourning for a month. All of us together in five houses.’ Scene 4

Education

The Longest Memory shows us that equality can be achieved through learning. Chapel and Lydia overcome their differences through mutual learning, reading and sharing. The fact that Chapel can learn also inspires Cook when she sees the potential for Chapel to be like Lydia. The prohibition of education for slaves is a sign of the oppressors’ understanding that education liberates and inspires. Sanders Junior questions whether Whitechapel can truly be inferior if he can tie a knot that Sanders Senior has not learnt to tie. It is dismissed as a joke when Sanders Senior instead focuses on Junior’s statement that whites were ‘bright’.

In the play, stories like those shared with Nana are a special form of education in the Indigenous community. In the same manner, preceding the lesson for the audience on the moiety system, the woman shares that she is telling this story like it was told to her, the oral tradition continuing. She also questions the importance of education in regard to reconciliation. The reality that some people struggle to spell reconciliation – a clear indicator of the education gap that exists between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians – is a measure of the progress made towards reconciliation and equality.

An indication of equality and hope in both texts, education is a vital part of the oppressed culture’s survival. It provides cultural continuity through storytelling and provides a chance to take a place in society. Negatively, it also holds the keys to the past and its painful memories. In contrast to the importance placed on storytelling in preserving Australian Indigenous culture, Whitechapel chooses to close the door to knowledge about Africa from his children.

Education Quotes

She called a book and moved my finger over, the words as she sang them: I heard a choir. (Chapel) Chapter 5

I can’t even mention the fact that I heard him with my own ears … poring over a book. … all I feel inside is pride. (Cook) Chapter 8

‘What does it mean when some people can’t even read or write the word?’ Scene 21

‘Now I want to tell you a story. I’ll tell you how it was told to me.’ Scene 15

Power and Resistance

In The Longest Memory’s setting of slavery, abuse of power is evident. Delivering unwarranted lashes or beatings with sticks is common place. Even rape is seemingly tolerated with a mere fine being the only consequence. The power to buy and sell human life is the ultimate in exploitation of power. In order to oversee their slaves, many masters resort to various kinds of punishment, aimed at discouraging rebellion or escape. Mr Whitechapel argues for demonstrating some kindness and respect to slaves but his participation in an inherently violent system makes him just as complicit as his hard-hearted colleagues.

The response to this power is crudely divided into those that learn from the whip and those that do not. Whitechapel categorises slaves into the slaves who must experience everything for themselves before coming to an understanding of anything and the slave that can learn by watching the cycle of power and resistance. Whitechapel has submitted to the power controlling his life and has survived advocating that others, especially Chapel, do the same and avoid the consequences of resistance. It is not a concession that the Africans are deserving of punishment but a realisation that they have no power to change the situation. However, Whitechapel does take part in small acts of confrontation that expose a belief that he has gained capital by submission. He employs this capital when Chapel has run away to gain leniency and resists Chapel’s punishment upon his capture. These acts show that he is willing, within certain boundaries, to defend his freedom but the outcome suggests that he was wrong in his belief.

The 7 Stages of Grieving is likewise inundated with examples of the abuse of power. The various sections of the play include colonial or government power, police power and power exerted by individuals. The arrival of the boat that takes up too much of the harbour is an indication of colonial spreading, infringing on the Indigenous population. Men visit a home and violently seize children. Police powers are exceeded when a young man, Daniel Yocke, loses his life while in police custody. Further to isolated incidents, the idea of institutionalised power is raised through the scene ‘Story of a Brother’. The brother is caught in a cycle after a misdemeanour; his fine and consequent struggles with payments and access to support show a system that is inherently discriminatory.

Responses to power by the individuals portrayed in the The 7 Stages of Grieving is an integral part of the play. The play itself is posited as example of resilience with the woman stating she can do little else but perform. Resistance is displayed through a prominent march to protest deaths in custody, providing individuals an opportunity to unite and stand against injustice. Many such displays in the struggle to survive against a rising tide have characterised the Indigenous experience, with the woman exclaiming they have been fighting for years. Another option is to flee, as in the case of Aunty Grace, but her grief at Nana’s funeral shows the price she had to pay: loss of family and culture. The sign on the grave ‘for sale’ indicates that the red earth in which it is placed, and indeed all the lives which have been displaced by colonial expansion, have come at a great cost.

The texts present the abuse of power based on race. The abuse can be physical or emotional, it can be perpetrated by individuals or systemic. The power can take lives or it can take land and culture. The novel and the play highlight incidences of resistance. Fleeing the oppression is one option, although the results of loss of life and connection to family and culture are a steep price to pay. Speaking up individually or in groups is hazardous as well. Whitechapel’s resistance on the night of the lashings earns him a fist to the face while the protest march brings disdain from the public for blocking roads. Survival mechanisms are seen in Whitechapel’s submission and the staunch continuation of the culture of Indigenous people, a path of least resistance but an effective tool to survival.

Power and Resistance Quotes

The whip ate into him but like all gluttons who have gorged themselves to their fill, it bit and chewed without swallowing and simply bit and chewed some more. (Whitechapel describing Chapel’s lashing) Chapter 1

There are two types of slave: the slave who must experience everything for himself before coming to an understanding… the second is brighter, lives longer. (Whitechapel) Chapter 1

‘One took a handful of my hair.. the other washed his face in my blood … My children stolen away …’ Scene 9

‘Don’t tell me we’re not fighting. Don’t tell me we don’t fight most of our lives.’ Scene 14

Freedom

The Longest Memory has at its core the question of freedom. Whitechapel, born as a slave to a slave, fathers children and grandchildren who are slaves. The value of freedom has not been a birth choice for the slaves. Whitechapel seeks for freedom by conforming in this life and waiting for freedom in the next. He trades freedom for safety. Other slaves seize opportunity to seek freedom by running away like Chapel. By not pursuing freedom and discouraging others to do so, Whitechapel inadvertently becomes a tool of the oppressor. His willingness to betray his son’s whereabouts to bring him back to servitude is not well received by the others. Those that seek freedom are more likely to inspire the other slaves. Ultimately, Whitechapel finds some freedom by discarding his name and divorcing himself from any emotion. Sanders Senior has restricted freedom as an indentured workhand. He is subject to arbitrary fines from the plantation owner and forced to marry against his will. While having nowhere near the same restrictions as slaves, poorer whites and females also experience restrictions.

The 7 Stages of Grieving discusses freedom from a more philosophical standpoint in that the aspects of Indigenous life that are discussed vary from complete deprivation of freedom to various limitations on freedom. Whereas the topics discussed such as stolen generations in ‘Invasion Poem’ and deaths in custody in ‘Mugshot’ demonstrate a fundamental lack of freedom, the play also presents subtle limitations on freedom. These can be seen by the discrimination in ‘Murri Gets a Dress’ and ‘Story of a Brother’ where the stories told outline characters that are imposed upon racially. The freedom to have and practise culture is also limited.

The two texts maintain the complex narrative that freedom can be taken from a group or an individual. They explore certain limitations to freedom which have been placed upon individuals as well as the responses of those individuals. Resistance is presented as an option but in most cases the reality has been a long subservient fight that ends in grief.

Freedom Quotes

Father, I am running. I feel joy; not fear. (Chapel) Chapter 5

I fly through the air and land in a place I know is Africa. The first thing I do is kiss the ground. (Great granddaughter) Chapter 12

‘… and sometimes the joy of being there was enough to forget, even for the briefest moment, the reason.’ Scene 4

Hope

In The Longest Memory hope is largely confined to the younger characters. Some young children dream of Africa even if they have not been there. There is a hope they can be reunited with a lost place and culture. Although discouraged by Whitechapel, the young have more hope of better days, such as Chapel who will flee in hope of some life in the North. Lydia too, as a younger person, holds hope for a future where slaves may be freed and paid to work. She expresses this view to The Virginian and receives encouragement as someone who demonstrates intelligence and certain advantages that go with being young, namely an unmitigated idealism. However the hope that black and white can walk together, a hope encouraged by the relationship she develops with Chapel and his success in learning, is dashed by the same editor as a heinous thought.

Hope in Mailman and Wesley’s play also looks toward the future. Everything has a time. The hope for reconciliation is metaphorically packed in a suitcase and will wait for the right time. Hope is garnished by family despite the circumstances. Family and unity, meeting and marching brings hope to individuals and the community. Resistance and perseverance has prevailed when hope has been betrayed. Ultimately, hope is placed in the audience when by laying the suitcase at their feet the woman is symbolically asking them to participation in reconciliation.

The two texts deliver vivid descriptions of the hardship and bleak circumstances of slavery and colonisation, of oppresssion and racism. However they do still offer some hope. Hope is depicted as survival through family and maintaining cultural ties in storytelling. Eventually, they also place hope in individuals who may not have power and position but can still make changes. In The longest Memory this hope is seen in Cook and Lydia’s belief in Chapel. In The 7 Stages of Grieving it is placed in the audience.

Hope Quotes

I was asked if slavery would ever come to an end …. In reply to the affirmative I said the world was changing rapidly. 150 years of slavery was a long time. (Editor, The Virginian) Chapter 11

He said it might be possible in the future. I look up at him and, as if to dash my hopes of a future when Chapel and I could sit and read together, he adds, maybe in the next century. (Lydia with Mr Whitechapel) Chapter 9

‘Everything has its time.’ Scene 5

The woman places the suitcase at the feet of the audience. (Scene 22)