The Yield Quotations

Tara June Winch's prose fiction novel The Yield For IB Lit HL Paper 2 Comparative

“if you say it right it hits the back of your mouth and you should taste blood in your words”

albert dictionary, blood = past loss, pain, hurt BUT ALSO family, culture. power of language to communicate the past, didactic “should”- intergenerational teaching through culture

“the river ran red”

with tea tree tannin but also with blood- colour symbolism, imagery, river represents spiritual health of gondiwindis

“massacre plains”

setting place name evokes suffering in the past, how places fit into memory, forgetting vs desensitisation

“vegemite valley” ; “chocolate milk” ; “minties”

food related metaphor to indicate internalised community racism, social class tied to race, division within aboriginal community

“seeing two things at the same time. Here and there, close and far, now and before”

the future is a product of the past, childlike eyes of August able to see beyond the present unlike adults, constant presence and need to heal the past

“fake child’s play food”

food as a metaphor for love- august’s mother gives love in the only way she understands it, idea of joking but not joking really, august’s later adult understanding of how she accepts food/love

[the dictionary being in reverse order]

structural evidence that undermines the audience’s preconceptions of a linear narrative, asserting that the past is relevant to the present

[mining propaganda]

appeal of money, illusion of what future progress looks like (building the mine) vs how the community may truly move into the future (reconciliation), presentation of shallow narrative/erasure of the future as well as the past