Question: Explain the way two texts use or manipulate generic conventions to generate a response from an audience

The manipulation of Australian short story genre reveals cultural biases and its effects on marginalised groups to challenge the audience’s personal beliefs and values**.** In Tim Winton’s Neighbours and Jack Davis’s White Fantasy Black Fact, the authors manipulate short story generic conventions for a white postcolonial Australian audience to feel confronted about their cultural bias in response to the prejudice marginalised characters experience. Whilst Winton explores the shift from monoculturalism to multiculturalism in the 1980s, Davis highlights the marginalisation of Indigenous Australians in a similar postcolonial society. Both texts serve to critique the prejudice harboured by postcolonial Australians, positioning the audience to change their views toward cultural acceptance and equality. Winston and Davis convey this through limited characterisation. However, while Davis utilises problem resolution structure to specifically ______, Winton utilises limited setting to ______________.

Both Davis and Winston manipulate limited characterisation to confront and change the views of postcolonial Australian audiences holding prejudice against marginalised cultures. Davis employs situational irony to reveal postcolonial Australians' cultural ignorance by juxtaposing a blue-collar white man's accepted beliefs with the harsh reality of an impoverished Indigenous family.. The bus driver, at first, is introduced as a man who pities the disadvantaged and sends “money to overseas missions”, right before he vehemently denies the Indigenous family of ‘‘unparalleled sickness” from entering his bus. The situational irony of his refusal constructs a saviour complex, ignorant of the injustice in his society while contributing to the discrimination of Indigenous people. This manipulation of characterisation reveals how cultural inequality is perpetuated by the prejudiced beliefs held by the postcolonial audience, prompting them to change their views toward their treatment of Indigenous Australians. Conversely, Winton utilises sincere and emotional diction to reveal how the cultural bias of “othering” immigrants can evolve into a transformative relationship between cultural groups through acceptance. The young Australian couple, initially apprehensive of their European neighbours, come to appreciate them, feeling “superior and proud when their parents came to visit…to cast shocked glances across the fence." The sincerity conveyed through the phrase “superior and proud," combined with the emotive diction of “shocked” glances, highlights that generational biases can be overcome with an open mind and authentic experiences. The couple is thus characterised as receptive and progressive in a postcolonial society that values white dominance, prompting the audience to reconsider their views to embrace multiculturalism in their society. By manipulating limited characterisation to shift the audience’s preconceived beliefs, both texts ultimately position their audience to change their perspectives on multiculturalism and equality.

Similar to Winton, “White Fantasy, Black Fact”, utilises descriptive lexical choice; conversely to the former, it manipulates the problem resolution structure. Through a reconstruction of the “Good Samaritan” parable, the actions of white characters are juxtaposed to the prejudice faced by Molly’s family, eliciting a post-colonial audience to change their cultural bias toward Indigenous people. The phrase ‘the bus lurched back onto the bitumen … the little Aboriginal group left standing at the side of the road’, utilises evocative adjectives such as ‘little’ and ‘left standing’, alluding to how defenceless and alone Indigenous Australians felt in their struggles to live freely and be valued in a racist society. As expected of a post-colonial society, well-versed knowledge of Bible parables positions the audience to recognise the parallels between the bus driver and Molly’s family with the fearful priest who walks by the injured Israelite, confronting their ignorant actions against Indigenous Australians. Furthermore, the passerby drivers ignoring Molly’s cries for help look at them “with the curious detached look of the unconcerned’, reinforcing the apathy white Australians bore toward the inequities they inflicted upon Indigenous Peoples and forcing the audience to confront their own complicity in perpetuating Indigenous suffering. Hence, embedding a familiar parable manipulates the problem resolution structure to cohesively challenges the audience to actively reconcile rather than maintain indifference to prejudice in their post-colonial society

In contrast to Davis, “Neighbours” implements dynamic imagery to manipulate limited setting, eliciting a post-colonial audience to change their cultural biases toward multiculturalism. Symbolism through seasonal changes depicts how building transformative connections takes time to develop. The phrases “in the autumn” transitioning into “by spring”, are coupled with scenes such as “the neighbours offered advice(on gardening)…the man resented the interference” and “They sat around on blocks…telling barely understood stories”. Winton manipulates seasonal changes to symbolise how acceptance and becoming accustomed to new changes is not imminent and requires both the white couple and their European neighbours to be open-minded in their interactions. Hence, this vivid imagery constructed to reveal the young couple’s acceptance of their multicultural neighbourhood influences my empathy as their story mirrors a common experience in all cultures who enter a new community.