Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence: Difference between revisions
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===Plot Summary=== | ===Plot Summary=== | ||
''Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence'' is based on the real life experiences of three aboriginal girls in Western Australia who were forcibly removed from their homes and sent to the Moore River Native Settlement. At Moore River the girls were prohibited from speaking their native language, taught that their culture was inferior, and that forced to act “white.” The girls lived in what amounts to a prison camp. There were bars on the windows, locks on the doors, and the food was infested with maggots. The girls escaped from Moore River and following the rabbit-proof fence, a fence that stretches from southern Australia, through the desert, to almost the ocean in northern Australia, they arrived home, on foot, a month later. | |||
===Social Significance=== | ===Social Significance=== | ||
Revision as of 00:15, 4 May 2006
About the Author
Doris (Garimara) Pilkington was born on the Balfour Downs Station, Western Australia, in 1932. At a very young age, Pilkington, along with her mother and baby sister, were removed from their home and shipped to the Moore River Native Settlement. Their forced removal was part of a governmental program that was aimed at assimilating aboriginal peoples into white culture. In 1990, Pilkington won the David Unaipon Award for her book Caprice: A Stockman’s Daughter. Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence, her second book was published in 1996 and it was turned into a film in 2002. Also in 2002, her third book Under the Wintamarra Tree was published. (UQ Press)
Plot Summary
Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence is based on the real life experiences of three aboriginal girls in Western Australia who were forcibly removed from their homes and sent to the Moore River Native Settlement. At Moore River the girls were prohibited from speaking their native language, taught that their culture was inferior, and that forced to act “white.” The girls lived in what amounts to a prison camp. There were bars on the windows, locks on the doors, and the food was infested with maggots. The girls escaped from Moore River and following the rabbit-proof fence, a fence that stretches from southern Australia, through the desert, to almost the ocean in northern Australia, they arrived home, on foot, a month later.
