‘THE DIMENSION OF THE SYMBOLIC’: ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES IN DAVID MALOUF’S “JACKO’S REACH”

Abstract

In David Malouf’s works natural landscape often plays a crucial role: rather than being a simple narrative background, it becomes the main protagonist in his exploration of the relationship between man and nature. In my analysis of “Jacko’sReach”, the shortest story in the Dream Stuff collection, I will focus on two different environmental concerns that emergefrom a close reading of this work: the question of space and identity (and the passage from the physical landscape to the ‘dimension of the symbolic’) and the issue of territorial deprivation as a neocolonial policy with its possible solutions.