The mid-19th-century settlement in the Australian wilderness is a patriarchal society, governed and operated by men, with women relegated primarily to keeping the home or supporting their husbands. Despite this social system, women in the novel play a critical role, exhibiting strength in the face of men’s weakness. The book contrasts men’s power, which is all about being perceived as strong and dominating, with women’s power, which is based upon their own quiet, internal strength and surety of conviction. Ultimately, the novel suggests that although men have more social authority, women are just as powerful and are often the true sources of strength in their communities.
Although the men of the settlement occupy leadership roles, their belief in their own power is fragile and dependent on their peers’ perception of them, suggesting that men’s patriarchal power is far flimsier than it first appears. In the first scene of the novel, young Lachlan “captures” Gemmy by pretending a stick he is holding is a rifle and marching Gemmy into town as a hostage. For Lachlan, the feeling of dominating another person and the brief admiration he receives from the adults make him feel powerful, like a “real” man. However, that feeling of power vanishes with just a quick cuff from Jock, demonstrating that Lachlan’s manly power is merely a fantasy. As Gemmy later observes to himself, “His power lay in your recognizing that he possessed it,” suggesting that Lachlan’s sense of power is really only others’ perception of power. While Lachlan’s power fantasies seem like the whims of a child, the adult men of the settlement display much of the same behavior. Just as Lachlan dwells on being perceived as powerful, so too do Jock and the other patriarchs of the settlement spend much of their time concerned with whether their neighbors perceive them as tough, masculine, and strong. When Gemmy shows any physical affection towards Jock, Jock immediately becomes self-conscious and uncomfortable, afraid that being seen held onto or hugged by Gemmy will make him seem weak or effeminate. This insecurity and need to project an image of masculine power suggests that for the men of the settlement, their belief in their own power or strength is actually quite frail.
In sharp contrast to the self-consciousness of the settlement’s men, the women in the novel, though often dominated by men, are invariably tough, hardworking, and self-confident. In contrast to Jock’s need for others to perceive him as powerful, his wife Ellen carries none of the same insecurity and instead commits herself to the challenges before her: “She lived in the demands of the moment […] and was too high-spirited, too independent, to care whether other women approved of her.” Although Jock and Lachlan are gripped with gloom and inertia each morning, Ellen pushes them and the other children to rise for the day and set about their work, “establishing the precarious order that […] would make the day lurch and move forward on its ordinary course.” Ellen’s strength and drive create a marked contrast to Jock, Lachlan, and all the other men’s general insecurity and lack of motivation. Though Ellen’s daughter Janet is frustrated by Lachlan’s assumptions that “he was superior, should take the lead in all their doings, and that she must naturally yield to him,” Janet exhibits the toughness and strength of character that Lachlan himself desires but lacks. When Gemmy is attacked and abducted from the McIvors’ home in the middle of the night by vindictive settlers, Janet waits outside in the darkness—while Lachlan sleeps inside like a child—for Jock to bring Gemmy back, with no fear of the dark wilderness surrounding them or the danger that might be hiding there. The quiet internal strength she shows here confirms for Janet’s parents and herself that in spite of Lachlan’s bravado, she is the strongest, most powerful child in the family. When Gemmy needs more protection than the McIvors can give him, he is taken to Mrs. Hutchence, an older woman who lives in the biggest house in the settlement, miles from anyone else, with a young woman named Leona. Like Ellen and Janet, Mrs. Hutchence and Leona are notably self-assured and capable, maintaining their home and property without the aid of a patriarchal figure. That Mrs. Hutchence’s house seems the safest place for Gemmy to stay once again suggests the power of the novel’s women, with or without men present.
Overall, this contrast between men and women’s power in the settlement suggests that, although men are attributed more social authority, women are the true source of a community’s strength. Although the men are technically the leaders of both their families and the settlement community, they are so concerned with the perception of their frail power that they rarely find the strength to act—though both Jock and Lachlan eventually develop in this regard. Meanwhile, the women in the book consistently demonstrate their own strength and initiative, even if their small society offers them less authority or potential for their futures. Through the example of the settlement, the novel indicates that despite women’s societal disempowerment, they may be stronger and more capable than their male counterparts.
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Gender and Power Quotes in Remembering Babylon
After a time the man began to grunt, then to gabble as if in protest, but when Lachlan put the stick into his spine, moved on faster, producing sounds of such eager submissiveness that the boy’s heart swelled. He had a powerful sense of the springing of his torso from the roots of his belly.
Since [Gemmy] had somehow found his way into the world, his object, like any other creature’s, was to stay in it by any means he could. He had a belly to feed.
The man was troubled. Gemmy saw it and was watchful. Jock’s fear of getting on the wrong side of his friends might in the end be more dangerous to him, he thought, than the open hostility he met in the settlement, where he was always under suspicion, and always, even when no one appeared to be watching, under scrutiny.
The struggle between them was fierce. Till Lachlan came, [Janet] had been used to going her own way, unconditioned and free. She had no limit to herself. Now she resented his easy assumption that he was superior, should take the lead in all their doings, and that she must naturally yield to him.
When [Gemmy] first came among them he had been unable to tell from their wooden expressions, and the even more wooden gestures, what they had in their heads. They hid what they felt as if they were ashamed of it, or so he had decided; though whether in front of others or before themselves he could not tell.
Barney, in his anxious way, was forever out there pacing the line and looking for signs of trespass; except there was no line, and the trespass too might be no more than a shadow on Barney’s thoughts, and how could you deal with that?
[Ellen] lived in the demands of the moment, in the girls, in Lachlan, and was too high-spirited, too independent, to care whether other women approved of her.
[Janet] saw something else as well. That in playing his part, Mr. Abbot had no more to do than Hector had. They only thought they were playing, because Leona managed things so cleverly, putting words into their mouths they they had never in fact spoken, and taking both parts herself.
At one point, out in the open, [the Aboriginal Australians] paused and looked up, bold as brass, to where he stood, pretty well hidden he had thought, and saw him, he was sure of it; any road, recorded he was there. Then boldly turning their backs on him and with no further interest, in whether or not he was observing, the old one, high-shouldered and floaty, still in front, walked on. The bloody effrontery of it! The cheek! The gall!
They got him to his feet, brushed him down, told him he wasn’t hurt, that he was a good fellow and that they had meant no harm. (It was true. They thought they didn’t.)
Laying aside his rifle, [Jock] crawled with [Gemmy] into that musty, dark-smelling place, and did a thing he could not for his life have done a week, perhaps even an hour ago: he sat huddled close to him in the dark, and when he shivered, drew him closer, pulled the old moth-eaten blanket round the two of them.
I think of our early settlers, starving on these shores, in the midst of plenty they did not recognize, in a blessed nature of flesh, fowl, fruit that was all around them and which they could not, with their English eyes, perceive, since the very habit and faculty that makes apprehensible to us what is known and expected dulls our sensitivity to other forms, even the most obvious.
[Janet] loved the way, while you were dealing with [the bees], you had to submit yourself to their side of things.
[Lachlan] was sorry for it. But it was absurd to have Gemmy always tagging at his heels, and he blushed now to recall a time when he regarded it as a sign of his power. How puffed up he had been with his own importance! What a fool he must have appeared to the very fellows he had meant to impress!
Something had been destroyed in [Jock] that could not be put right. [Lachlan] watched his uncle drift back after a time to his friends, to Barney Mason, Jim Sweetman, but the days of unselfconscious trust in his standing among them, and the belief that to be thought well of by such fellows was the first thing in the world, were gone.
Sir George, [Mr. Frazer] decides, exudes a magnificent air of unreality that includes everything he looks upon. He has got close enough to feel its disintegrating effect in every part of him.
[Janet] was surprised, reading his letter, by its courtesy, its tentativeness, its tenderness she might have said, and recalling her own prickly tone felt foolish.
“I sometimes think that that was all I ever knew of him: what struck me in that moment before I knew him at all. When he was up there [on the fence] before he fell, poor fellow, and became just—there’s nothing clear in my head of what he might have been before that, and afterwards he was just Gemmy, someone we loved.”
