Understanding history for a post modernist point of view

What is history?

• How so we know the past?
• How do we make sense of it?
• Traditional response is to make stories about it
• E.g. historical fiction, history textbooks
• Yes, the past once existed
• We learn about it through documents and other artifacts that have been left behind
• Traces of the past
• Based on those
• We construct or reconstruct the past

History vs. Truth

• What is fact?
• What is truth?
• Who decides?
• Not easy to decide from post-modern
• Novel, 1984
• Winston’s job at the Ministry of Truth
• Rewrites history to reflect current view
• Now have technology to manipulate pictures as well
• Is there a single meaning to the past?
• Who is telling the story?
• Different people see things in different ways
• E.g. Five blind men and an elephant

Billy the Kid

• Book is not about the real Billy the Kid
• MO exposed to American popular culture after WWWII
• Movies with Roy Rodgers and Gene Autry
• Read American comic books
• Became fascinated with Billy by the age of eight
• Legend and truth woven together
• In late 1960’s, discovered a series of paintings about Ned Kelly
• Read books, newspaper articles, Royal Commission Report
• Listened to recorded ballads about Kelly’s exploits
• Showed author how he might create his own picture
• Had already written some poems using Billy’s voice
• Legend of Billy emerged
• With his memories of playing Cowboys and Indians as a child
• Wrote the book over two years
• Took another year to edit and rearrange the manuscript
• Never interested in the real Billy
• Instead, saw him as an alter ego
• Author looked for links between
• Mythology
• History
• Biography
• Created a collage of photographs, lyrics, ballads, short prose pieces, interviews, tall tales and found poems

Putting the book together

• The photographs and layout of the book
• Two important elements
• Many of the photographs staged
• Used family and friends
• Worked with an editor
• Dennis Lee

The Real Billy the Kid

• Born New York City
• November 23, 1859
• Real name: Henry McCarthy
• Mother remarried William H. Antrim
• 1873
• Source of alias?
• Moved to New Mexico
• Used William H. Bonney as an alias
• Committed first murder
• At the age of 12
• Knifed a man who insulted his mother
• By 18 years of age
• Charged with 12 murders
• Captured and sentenced to death
• After his gang killed a sheriff and deputy
• Escaped by killing two guards
• Eventually trapped and shot to death
• By former friend, Pat Garrett

How the author plays with traditional conventions

• Who was Billy the Kid?
• Facts? Myth or fiction?
• MO used some post modern techniques

Post modern literature: some characteristics

As readers we think historical fiction authors have done their research

• Questions role of author
• One single, authorial voice
• Who decides that work has one single meaning
• Meaning of work is not fixed
• Shifting point of view
• Other voices include
• Pat Garrett
• Paulita Maxwell
• Sally Chishum
• Mostly Billy’s voice but
• He is killed on page 6
• His list of dead includes himself
• So is the book written after he is dead?

Discontinuous narrative

• Storyline does not proceed in a linear fashion
• “television” writing
• In fragments
• In present tense
• Has a cinematic feeling to it

Other techniques

• Paradox
• Billy
• “gentleman”
• Pat Garnett
• “sane assassin”
• “sociopath”
• Layering
• How many times is Billy’s death mentioned throughout the story?
• Building on death, may feel like travelling in circles
• Makes writing feel dense
• Used a variety of sources
• To recombine elements of the past
• To create a new work of art