Space and Language

Eric Vilmer

11/8/20

Professor Simpson

                Short Essay for Week 12

In my opinion these essays had similarities to that of the essays we read on native Alaskans and 

how they are treated. “Disarmed of their savagery, the natives become figures of irony. They stand in 

for irredeemable nature. Forty years later, Breton could refer quite casually to a notorious bushranger as 

‘this gloomy savage’ - as if the Aborigines had never existed, except as a figure of speech.” (Carter,

321) These essays do not seem to specifically tie to a specific space where natives resided, they seem to

be more about the white man's perspective on natives in general. Perhaps both essays were set in 

Australia, but I noticed in the second essay that Carter seems to mention Australia and New Zealand 

and how names are created. One specific example of name creation is when they are discussing the 

names of plants. “On the endeavor voyage, Solander and Banks made use of the system of 

classification developed and popularized by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. The Linnaean system 

was artificial in the sense that it was derived from no detailed examination of plant morphology, which 

might reveal ‘natural’ affinities between distinct species.” (Carter, 18-19) What I make of this and 

names in general is the fact that people look at names and think of objects or even ideas as the name

instead of whatever the physical thing or person is. We make names and definitions and that is where a

stereotype starts. Many people do not stop and look at the physical world as it is but they look at the

world through their opinions that were constructed mainly by other people of the past.