Boldrewood

1 Pages 339 Words

Robbery Under Arms is the story of the Marston brothers. Australian born Dick and Jim, and their English-born ex-convict father, Ben. Under Ben's influence the brothers take to the lawless path, following the charismatic Captain Starlight.
The novel affords many interesting aspects for literary criticism. These range from the character of Captain Starlight to the role of the 'Terrible Hollow' through to the many and varied dualities in theme and character delineation. This paper will demonstrate that Boldrewood's narrative style is equally important in accounting for the attractiveness and durability of Robbery Under Arms. In particular his choice of key words which happen to be Irish language words bring a new dimension into consideration of the novel, reinforcing as they, and the other non-standard English words of the novel do, the overall theme of Freedom and Constraint.
Three keys words in the novel are spree, call and world, of which the first two are Irish language words and the use of the last in phrases owes its origin to that language too. Scattered throughout the novel, in particular in the speech of Dick Marston in his role as the narrator, are other Irish language influenced words and phrases. Through this language we can glimpse the Irish presence in early European Australia whose 'numbers and noisiness' was frequently mentioned by visitors to the Colony. While the Irish way of speaking English was frowned upon in the Old Country where societal correctness included the use of standard English in speech and print, under the freedom that was early European Australia an Australian vernacular could develop, one which would be representative of the variety that made up that society, and of which the Irish were a considerable number. Although Boldrewood provides a clear divide between his protagonists' English and Irish backgrounds, his choice of language reveals an Irish spirit in the characters and acting as an undergro...