The word “savage” is a label that white, Christian, colonists (or settlers) have historically used to dehumanize those whose land they occupy with their diseases, superior arms, and technology. It is a word that instantly creates a sense of otherness. It labels the non-white culture as deviant, as less human, and therefore as less worthy of the dignity and respect afforded to a fellow human being.
Create a thesis that contrasts how each government in Sharon Pollock’s Walsh exercises social control over the First Nations peoples.
Explore how characters in the play display “us versus them” binary thinking that results in the dehumanization of indigenous culture and how this is portrayed in the depiction of the indigenous characters represented in the text as the Other.
(Be sure to support your ideas using a direct close reading of evidence cited from the play – don’t just summarize!)
