Swallow The Air Discovery Essay

Discoveries do indeed alter how people perceive their connections with others and the world around them. This statement accurately reflects the ideas present in the novel ‘Swallow the Air’ By Tara June Winch, the film adaptation of ‘Wuthering Heights’ By Coky Giedroyc in 2009 and the poem ‘We are going’ By Oodgeroo of the Noonuccal tribe. Discovery encompasses how perceiving life from various perspectives can empower people into renewed and altered perceptions of others and themselves. The journey to discovery for the protagonists in these three texts emphasises how relationships and significant events have the power to alter the perspective of a person’s connections with others and the world around them

Relationships

In Winch’s ‘Swallow the Air’; the protagonist faces a journey to discovery through her relationships, which have enforced an altered perspective of her connections to the world and others around her.

Mays feeling of misplacement and the obstacles she is faced with are the catalyst towards her journey to self-discovery.

Obstacles such as her mother suicide in the beginning of the novel, when May was told her mother “had to leave” allowing her to establish the connection with the emptiness inside the ice cream container helmet, provides a visual metaphor of the dead stingray which May compares to her mother’s death as it was “floating around in my beating mind”, conveying her discovery that death leaves nothing but “emptiness”. May soon realises that the violence inflicted upon her mother by ‘white’ men because she was indigenous, was echoed onto her when May was raped.

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The rapist words- “This is gonna show ya where ya don’t belong dumb black bitch”- emphasises the depth of antagonism she experienced. The violence in the alliterated ‘black bitch’ is felt more painfully by May than the physical injury as it leaves her as an outsider with no sense of self. Thus it can be seen that d…

Swallow The Air Sparknotes