Cultural Solipsism, National Identities and the Discourse of Multiculturalism in Australian Picture Books

ROBYN M C C A L L U M

"What am I?" it murmured. "What am I, What am I?" The bunyip jumped in delight. "You are a bunyip!" he shouted. "Am I? A m I really?" asked the other bunyip; and then "What do I look like?" "You look just like me," said the bunyip happily. And he lent her his mirror to prove it. J E N N Y W A G N E R , The Bunyip of Berkeley's Creek

O VER ITS RELATIVELY short history, the picture book i n Australia, like other popular texts, has played an important role i n the process o f cultural production. As both cultural products and cultural constructions, picture books reflect the culture that produces them, and they actively construct and canonize images of that culture. As Graeme T u r n e r has argued, Australian texts are not simply "the natural and organic products of our emerging national character"; instead they are "cultural constructions" of that character, or "national fictions" ( 2 0 ) . F o r Turner, the narratives p r o d u c e d by a culture are models by which a society conceives of and articulates a view of itself. Narrative does not simply reflect the culture; it has "a cultural function of m a k i n g sense of experience, o f filling absences and of h e l p i n g to explain the culture to i t s e l f (9) . These ideas are particularly pertinent to picture books because of the central place that these texts have i n the education and enculturation of c h i l d r e n . T h e texts produced by a culture for c h i l d r e n also have a critical role i n mediating that culture to its young participants. Insofar as children's texts seek to enculturate their readers within mainstream society, these texts are an i n d e x o f the ways that the dominant images of the culture are ideologically reshaped. ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature, 28:1, January 1997

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Australian picture books over the last 3 0 years have been constructed out of a particular combination of images, symbols, myths, a n d ideologies that reflect shifting discourses about nationalism and multiculturalism within Australian society. These texts also have a crucial role in the process of cultural production i n that they seek to make an impact on social formation by specifying preferred constructions of selfhood a n d social relations. These constructions constitute a meta-narrative o f subject formation which underlies the discourses of nationalism and multiculturalism as they are manifest i n children's texts. Australia, like many postcolonial societies, is preoccupied with notions of a national identity. Turner has noted that the study of Australian literature i n general "has been dominated by the search for the definition of Australian literature" ( 2 ) t h a t is, the essential features which constitute the "Australianness" of a text. Attempts to define an "Australian" literature are inextricably b o u n d up o n the one h a n d with the construction of a canon, and, o n the other, with concepts of a cultural identity. Notions of "quality" and "Australianness" are both highly problematic. Both are an aspect of the cultural construction of value a n d meaning. What is seen as "quality" a n d "Australian" i n literature a n d i n picture books is indicative of the meanings, thematic structures, and formal strategies preferred by the culture, and, hence the dominant ideologies of the culture. Such a search for a national identity is also tied up with concepts o f place (both physical and social) and the relationships between place a n d the h u m a n subject, wherein individual subjectivity as it is shaped within a social a n d natural landscape functions allegorically for a national cultural identity. In picture books, the allegoric relation between individual and cultural identity is given a particular ideological nuance a n d force through interaction with a central preoccupation of children's textsthe development out of solipsism and the formation of subjectivity. Meta-narratives underlyi n g Australian picture books see the relationship between self and other as m t o n y m i e o f wider social relationships, a n d the development of intersubjectivity within a specific social and natural setting enacts a search for identity narrative which is shaped by broader cultural and ideological conceptions o f a preferred national identity.

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Recent discussions of nationalism tend to take the form a dialogue between an established Anglo-Celtic m o d e l (informed by a nostalgia for an idealized rural colonial past and stressing homogeneity) and a newer multicultural m o d e l (emphasizing the diversity, multiplicity, and heterogeneity that characterize contemporary Australian society). This dialogue has shaped the ways that the formation of intersubjectivity is depicted i n Australian picture books over the last 3 0 years. It is almost a commonplace that the 1970s marks a "coming of age" for the Australian picture book. A n increase i n the awarding of the Australian C h i l d r e n ' s Book C o u n c i l Picture Book award from 1 9 7 0 onwards is usually seen as an index of the higher quality of books produced. Increased production and the "higher quality" of books are largely attributable to technical developments i n the design, production, and p r i n t i n g techniques, as well as the availability of cheap p r i n t i n g ( M u i r 1 2 5 ) . However, the emergence of the picture book in the 1 9 7 0 s and 1980s is also an aspect o f the larger cultural institutions, practices, and discourses, especially the discourses of nationalism and multiculturalism, through which specific kinds of texts, meanings, and ideologies are produced and privileged. Three main shifts from the 1970s onward occur i n the kinds of picture book that have been produced and acclaimed. First, is the move away from the illustrated book to the "picture book," that is, a text i n which the visual and verbal texts are given equal emphasis and interact to produce meaning. A corollary of this has been an implicit privileging o f literary and artistic values associated with high culture. Second, is the move toward the production o f texts which are specifically "Australian" and more or less overtly nationalistic i n their ideologies. A n d third, more recently, is the more overtly politically-driven move toward the production of texts which reflect images of Australian society as multicultural. These last two aspects, nationalism and multiculturalism, are not exclusive, though older established forms of nationalism do present problems for the representation o f Australia as a multicultural society. T h e move from an assimilation policy to a multicultural policy i n the early 1970s and the establishment of the Australian Multicultural C h i l d r e n ' s Literature
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Awards by the Office for Multicultural Affairs i n 1 9 9 1 have clearly had an impact o n the kinds of texts produced for children. However, this impact is discernible not just i n the content of the texts (for example the tokenist inclusion of non-Anglo characters), but also i n the way that the bank of images and discourses which picture books draw on is subtly re-shaped so as to construct a dialogue between concepts of a national and a multicultural identity which is played out metonymically via depictions of the development of intersubjectivity. As with the Australian film industry, the picture book industry in the 1970s was dominated by the older established forms of nationalism. T h e picture books' "coming of age" necessitates a privileging of texts which represent a landscape and culture which is specifically "Australian" and which is constructed paradigmatically from a particular bundle of symbols, myths, and images which are ideologically driven. We can apply Turner's comments about the revived film industry at this time to the newer picture book industry: In defence of the films from the seventies, the preceding long hiatus in Australian film production must have made it seem that there was something of a backlog of cultural iconography to work through. Given the demand to develop a visual mythology for the nation, in what was virtually a new medium for Australian audiences, it is little wonder that the versions of Australian identity offered for our recognition were nostalgically masculine, rural and colonial. (Making it National 127) This nostalgia for a colonial rural past is clearly evident in the abundance o f picture book versions o f bush ballads and traditional verse published throughout the 1970s and 1980s, where specific, and often clichd, markers of "Australianness" are privileged and serve to maintain an older, pastoral version of nationalism originating i n the work of nineteenth-century Australian impressionist painters such as T o m Roberts and Frederick M c C u b b i n , and o f writers such as A . B . (Banjo) Paterson and H e n r y Lawson. Picture book versions of bush ballads and traditional verse articulate a convergence o f nationalist ideologies and high cultural forms through the pictorial modes which illustrators use to represent landscape and character. As J o h n Stephens notes ( 7 2 ) , this genre of picture book is dominated

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by a pictorial style which recalls a n d sometimes overtly quotes nineteenth-century Australian impressionist painting. F o r example, D e s m o n d Digby's illustrations for Paterson's Waltzing Matilda ( 1 9 7 0 ) use a painterly technique a n d dark palette strongly reminiscent o f M c C u b b i n ' s workseveral commentators describe this picture book as a "landmark" i n Australian picture book p u b l i s h i n g , a comment which indicates the extent to which such stylistic choices a n d the ideologies which inform them are privileged a n d canonized. Roberts's "Shearing the Rams" ( 1 8 9 0 ) has also become a canonical pretext for a number of picture book versions o f ballads, for example, two versions o f Click go the Shears by Walter C u n n i n g h a m ( 1 9 7 6 ) a n d Robert Ingpen ( 1 9 8 4 ) and J o h n A n t h o n y King's "The Shearing Shed"
2

(in H e n r y Lawson's Mary

called him Mister,

1 9 9 1 ) . T h e occur-

rence of the same image i n K a n H a n n a m ' s Sunday TooFar Away, a film made i n 1 9 7 5 , a n d a 1 9 9 5 television advertisement for a medical benefits fund, suggests that this is an aspect of the wider cultural production o f texts a n d ideologies. M o r e recently, K i n g has produced naturalistic a n d heavily romanticized versions o f bush ballads which are stylistically indebted to the naive realist conventions o f early colonialist painting. Most o f these picture book versions o f ballads a n d verse evince an unreflective nostalgia for a rural colonial past, which, c o m b i n e d with elements of a romanticized tradition o f resistance to authority implicit i n the figure of the swagman a n d the "wild colonial boy" (for example, King's The Wild Colonial Boy 1 9 8 5 ) , is displaced through the historical setting. Analyzing the construction o f national identities i n picture books is not simply a matter o f looking for Australian cultural icons, like the H a r b o u r Bridge, kangaroos, a n d vegemite sandwiches. Such icons obviously do play an important role as markers o f "Australianness," especially for overseas consumption, a n d can evoke a paradigm which particular texts engage with a n d interrogate. A s T u r n e r has suggested, "the cultural specificity, the Australian-ness, of Australian texts" lies i n "recurring principles o f organisation a n d selection" (NationalFictions 19). Texts draw u p o n a bank o f myths, symbols, connotations, and ideologies that have currency i n the Australian culture.

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C l i c h d nationalist motifs and icons do play an important part in the production o f picture books. But there is also a bank or store of pictorial and literary conventions and motifs which construct and represent an "Australian" contextfor example the recognizably "Australian" impressionist and colonialist pictorial styles used by Digby, Ingpen, and K i n g . These conventions and motifs will often appear ideologically "neutral" because the ideologies inscribed i n them are implicit or because those motifs and conventions are part o f a l o n g cultural tradition. Furthermore, as conventions and images are reappropriated and recycled i n different contexts they accrue other meanings and enter into dialogue with contemporary and historical ideological constructions of the culture. O n e way of e x a m i n i n g ideological shifts in the representation of "Australianness" is for us to look at re-editions of picture books, such as Lydia Pender's Dan McDougall and the Bulldozer
( 1 9 6 3 ; 1 9 8 7 ) and Sharpur the Carpet Snake ( 1 9 6 7 ; 1 9 8 2 ) . B o t h

picture books have been re-published with illustrations by a different illustrator (Tony Oliver) and there is an obvious contrast i n the quality o f the p r o d u c t i o n and the p r i n t i n g techniques used for the 1960s and 1980s editions. However, a comparison of the earlier and later editions also demonstrates changes i n the dominant modes o f representation and ideologies that are privileged by Australian culture of the 1960s and the 1980s. Dan McDougall and the Bulldozer, o n which I will focus my discussion here, tells the story of the journey o f a bushman (and his bulldozer) from the bush to the city and back to the bush. In the city, Dan becomes confused by the traffic and crowds and, losing control of the bulldozer, wreaks havoc i n the middle o f the city; Dan and Dozer return home to the bush i n disgrace. M i n o r changes to the text i n the 1 9 8 7 edition of Dan McDougall and the Bulldozer indicate changing attitudes toward the natural environment. F o r example, the 1 9 6 3 edition reads, "Sometimes there were trees to fell, and that was best of all"; the 1 9 8 7 edition reads: "Sometimes there were trees to fell. That was a pity, but it had to be done. A n d wasn't it exciting!" In the 1 9 6 3 edition, the felled tree waves its "broken, foolish roots" at the sky; i n the 1 9 8 7 edition, the roots are "torn and broken." In the 1 9 6 3 edition,

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Dozer tears u p the mulga a n d the wattle (native Australian species) ; i n the 1 9 8 7 edition, Dozer tears up the prickly pear and bracken (imported noxious weeds). These are overt reflections of changing environmental policies and attitudes. M o r e implicit ideological shifts are revealed by the pictorial styles of the two editions o f Dan McDougall and the Bulldozer i n the representation of the landscape, the architecture, and the characters. T h e pictorial style of the 1960s editions uses flat colour a n d simple line drawing. There is little attempt to suggest an illusionistic space and the figures are given a cartoon-like treatment. Dan McDougall and the Bulldozer ( 1 9 6 3 ) also depicts some fairly obvious iconic markers of Australianness (kangaroos, koalas, a n d aborigines) i n an otherwise non-specific landscape. The three A b o r i g i n a l figures who greet D a n a n d Dozer on their return to the bush are not m e n t i o n e d i n the text. In the picture, they receive stereotypical representation (naked a n d carrying spears), a n d they appear as a part of the landscape. (In the 1 9 8 7 edition they are replaced by three dairy cowsa curious effect, whereby politically incorrect illustration is removed, but which then reminds us how Aborigines are effaced from such texts). These iconic features connote an image of "Australia" as a generalized c o n c e p t l a c k i n g i n particularity. T h e pictorial style of the 1 9 8 7 edition is more naturalistic. T h e illustrator uses naturalistic perspective, animals a n d plants appear i n detail, and there is a wide range of types of plants, animals, and birds. T h e "Australian" features are a more integral part of the pictorial design a n d are more particularized. I am not suggesting that the pictorial style of the 1 9 8 7 edition o f Dan McDougall and the Bulldozer is d o i n g anything new, nor that the 1 9 6 3 edition is all that outdated i n its style. T h e tokenism o f the 1 9 6 3 text is of course still prevalent i n contemporary picture b o o k s f o r example vegemite sandwiches, pavlova, a n d lamingtons i n Possum Magic ( 1 9 8 9 ) . A n d naturalism was also used i n earlier texts stylistically, the 1 9 8 7 edition of Dan McDougall is similar to Shy the Platypus ( 1 9 4 5 ) . However, the pictorial styles used i n these reeditions of Pender's work do show how naturalism has become a dominant a n d privileged mode for representing the country or bush landscape and for representing the past. By contrast, where

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naturalism was used i n earlier texts, such as Shy the Platypus, it was generally associated with a pseudo-documentary approach to Australian wildlife. The re-edition o f Dan McDougall and the Bulldozer also demonstrates what have become two archetypal icons i n the Australian picture book: the nineteenth-century cottage a n d the bushman figure. Stephens argues that "the humble, nineteenth-century cottage a simple oblong, with a simple corrugated-iron h i p roof and a separately roofed verandah r u n n i n g across the front, is the basis for the vast majority of domestic homes depicted i n Australian picture books" ( 7 3 ) . Architecturally, the cottage dates from about the 1850s, but i n picture books it occurs i n historical rural settings a n d contemporary inner city settings alike a n d has been occurring with increased frequency over the last twenty-five years ( 8 o n ) . As Stephens also notes, the cottage signals an idealization of colonial society which i n contemporary urban settings has the ideological function of transposing traditional c o m m u nal values associated with an idyllic rural c h i l d h o o d onto a suburban landscape ( 6 g ) . What is interesting about the two editions of Dan McDougall and the Bulldozer is that the classic features of this archetypal cottage present as a trace i n the earlier edition have been emphasized i n the later edition. In the 1963 edition, Dan's house is a simple weatherboard construction with a corrugatediron roof; i n the 1987 edition the h i p roof, verandah, a n d rocking chair have been added. The image of the Australian "bushman" has a more celebrated history than that o f the tin-roofed cottage, but like the cottage, the bushman is an aspect of the Australian pastoral i n which an idyllic rural past is implicitly imposed o n a contemporary urban
age. In the 1 9 6 3 edition of Dan McDougall and the Bulldozer,

Rose depicts the characters using a cartoon-style illustration he sketches the male figures with black and white line drawing, though their hats, sex, stance, a n d posture signal an Australian bush archetype. A g a i n this is emphasized i n the 1 9 8 7 edition through Oliver's detailed drawings, where although D a n a n d the farmers appear i n more detail, they conform to the Anglo-celtic mythology of the "Australian male" wearing steel capped workboots, A k u b r a hats, either pulled down over the eyes or pushed

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back "larrikin" style as i n the case of Dan, standing slouched with folded arms or leaning o n a shovel or a fence, chewing on a piece of grass or stick. Together these two cultural icons indicate an underlying nationalist ideology i n which an idyllic rural colonial past is implicitly opposed to and privileged over a contemporary urban age. B o t h the nineteenth-century cottage and the bushman figure are characteristic features o f an Australian pastoral, and the recurrence of pastoral images i n picture books, and i n Australian texts in general (as i n the i g 7 o s revival films), expresses an underlying nostalgia for an idealized rural past. In Australian literature and art, the pastoral takes o n culturally specific forms ideologically l i n k e d with the older and established version of nationalism to which romantic images o f the bush are central. These images seem to have originated i n representations of the bush from the 1890s, i n the verse and prose of Paterson and Lawson and i n the work of such Impressionist painters as Roberts and M c C u b b i n though, as Richard White argues, these now "classic" visions of the bush landscape were essentially an urban production, "the city-dweller's image of the bush" ( 8 5 ) . T u r n e r also suggests that for writers such as Paterson and Lawson, "the bush was also the location for the romanticizing of an authentic 'natural' community, the invention of a social structure i n which the positioning o f the individual i n the network o f loyalties and responsibilities was valorized as the antithesis to the town" (NationalFictions 34). As a representation, any landscape, image or idea o f a place functions as a sign system. It is elaborately coded through its stylistic features and techniques and by "its location in culture generally" (Gibson 2 1 5 ) , and is hence always inscribed with social values and meanings. Romantic constructions o f the bush as opposed to the city are configurations of a primary opposition which has remained central to established versions o f nationalism, that is, the opposition between nature (the bush) and culture (the city). Traditionally, nature (and the bush) is the valorized term i n this opposition, and the natural country bush setting becomes the site u p o n which an authentic selfhood, and hence an authentic national identity, is formed. This valorized opposition underlies the narrative structure o f Dan McDougall

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and the Bulldozer, which plots the journey from the bush to the city and back to the bush. T h e text closes with "'This is the place for you,' said Dan M c D o u g a l l ; 'and this is the place for me.'" Thus it not only implicitly valorizes the bush and Dan's affinity with the bush, it also implies a correlation between a subjectivity and a sense of belonging both to aplace and with an (albeit inanimate) other and the rural bush landscape. As many cultural commentators have pointed out, there is a strong link between the romantic bush myth and a traditional version of nationalism which circumscribes an authentic "Australian" identity within a rural and masculine paradigm. As Turner argues, this older established version of nationalism is problematic insofar as "it still addresses a single national character and depends u p o n a singular version of history [and] is incapable o f incorporating, and is therefore implicitly hostile to, the multiplicity of identities and histories currently competing for representation within the discourses of nationality" (Making it National i o ) . A major shift i n the Australian picture book industry i n the 1980s and 1990s has been toward the production of texts which reflect images of Australian society as multicultural. However, as with many o f the more traditionally nationalistic picture books that I have so far been discussing, "multicultural" picture books are typically unreflective about the ideological implications of the multicultural agenda that they espouse, and "multicultural" elements, usually in the form of an apparent cultural diversity i n characterization, are often simplistically imposed u p o n a pre-existing social and physical landscape already loaded with nationalistic ideologies which subsume and exclude such cultural differences. T h e move toward multiculturalism is, at least i n part, driven by a (loosely defined) political agenda. T h e Multicultural C h i l d r e n ' s Literature Awards aim "to foster books for Australian children which truly reflect our cultural diversity" and they are informed by an assumption "that all Australian children should see themselves reflected i n the stories they read" (Austin 2 0 3 ) . A fine line, however, exists between texts which "naturally" integrate multicultural issues into the plot, thereby representing "multicultural society asjustafact of life" (Austin 2 0 3 ) , and texts which incor-

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porate cultural diversity tokenistically into Anglocentric conceptions of the social landscapeas i n Mr Plunkett's Pool ( 1 9 9 2 ) , the winner o f the 1 9 9 3 Multicultural Picture Book Award. T h e architectural styles of the houses and sense of community i n the street i n Mr Plunkett's Pool evoke traditional cultural values usually associated with semi-rural communities and hence with the older version of nationalism described by Turner. T h e opposition between the bush and the city is reconfigured i n Mr Plunkett's Pool so that the values conventionally associated with the bush are transposed onto inner-city suburbia within which the two markers of cultural diversity, K i m and Lee, are subsumed, and which are i n turn opposed to the values of capitalism, commercialism, and self-interest embodied by M r Plunket's garishly renovated house. T h e recognition o f cultural differences is integral with the development of intersubjectivity, and may be represented literally and symbolically as a process of exploring and engaging with the outside world. Thus Bridgit was Bored ( i g g 2 ) , another inner-city multicultural picture book, constructs a link between place, cultural diversity, and intersubjectivity. T h e main character, Bridgit, is bored at the o p e n i n g o f the book, and the story tells of her walk a r o u n d the block, a journey i n which she meets a range of other people. O n the last page, she meets a young boy who is m o v i n g in just a r o u n d the corner; it is i m p l i e d that he and Bridgit will become friends, though she has had to walk the whole way r o u n d the block to meet h i m . T h e layout of each page emphasizes the implications o f thisjourney for Bridgit's progress toward intersubjectivity. T h e four streets along which Bridgit walks are illustrated, initially as black and white line drawings, around the border of the page. T h e picture i n the centre of the page details where Bridgit is and who she is meeting. As she walks a r o u n d the block, the line drawings around the border are gradually c o l o u r e d i n . In this way, the layout constructs a constantly shifting viewing path which moves from centre and margin and from the inside and the outside. Symbolically, the layout schematizes the pattern o f behaviour necessary for Bridgit's move toward intersubjectivity. Furthermore, insofar as

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cultural diversities, i n the form of ethnic, age and sub-cultures, are mapped onto the social landscape which Bridgit explores, the move out o f solipsism is represented as m t o n y m i e of wider social and cultural interrelationships. A picture book which thematizes the interrelationships between individual and cultural identity more overtly is The Bunyip of Berkeley's Creek ( 1 9 7 3 ) . This is i n part a parody of the bush ballad genre, as well as a more serious examination o f the relations between individual and cultural identity. T h e story concerns the Bunyip's quest for identity and for a friend (someone like himself), and parodie references to bush ballads and other cultural icons construct a cultural background against which the Bunyip's individual quest for inter-subjectivity is set. T h e title is an implicit reference to the eighteenth-century philosopher George Berkeley, who maintained that physical objects cannot exist unperceived, and hence that to exist is to be perceived. This idea intersects with contemporary thought about subjectivity: namely that concepts o f selfhood are formed intersubjectively, that is, through a relationship with an other and through a process of mutual recognition. A sense of personal identity is dependent o n another's recognition and acknowledgment of one's self. T h e Bunyip's quest occurs within a cultural and a social context. T h e cultural context, which is specifically Australian, is constructed parodically, i n features like the quotation of the Australian coat of arms on the front cover in which the Bunyip is placed at the centre between the E m u and the Kangaroo (Bunbury and Tabbert 1 0 3 ) , and the implicit references to "Waltzing Matilda" i n the Bunyip's carrying a "swag," camping by a billabong, and putting his "billy on to b o i l " ( 2 0 - 2 1 ) . T h e Bunyip character is a borrowing from A b o r i g i n a l Dreamtime narratives, though it has been romanticized by Wagner and Brooks through its appropriation into an Anglo-Australian cultural tradition. T h e placement of the Bunyip, a mythical creature, at the centre of the Australian coat of arms suggests a range of meanings: the centrality of myth to the construction o f an Australian identity, the ambivalent position of A b o r i g i n a l culture
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in relation to non-aboriginal Australian culture, or the mythic status o f an "Australian" identity or culture. The Bunyip's quest also occurs within a social context, and the narrative shape o f this quest and the manner of its resolution impinge o n questions about an Australian cultural identity. D u r i n g his quest the Bunyip meets a Wallaby, an E m u , and a man; he asks each of these characters what Bunyips look like. T h e Wallaby and the E m u both describe Bunyips i n antithesis to themselves: the Wallaby describes them as having "horrible feathers" ( 1 1 - 1 2 ) ; the E m u describes them as having "horrible fur" and "horrible tails" ( 1 5) . Thus both see the Bunyip as not like themselves. T h e stance adopted by both the Wallaby and the E m u represents a form of solipsism which denies the selfhood of the other (the bunyip). T h e response of the man goes a step further than this. H e replies that "Bunyips don't look like anything" because "Bunyips d o n ' t exist" ( 1 9 ) . By denying the Bunyip's existence, he refuses the Bunyip a subject position at all. This episode also inverts the logic of Berkeley's conundrum: to not be perceived is to not exist. B o t h of these positions have negative social implications because both deny the possibility of social interaction between radically different social groups and individuals. The Bunyip's quest is resolved when he meets another bunyip whom he recognizes as being like himself. T h e illustration depicting the Bunyip gazing in the mirror implicitly affirms a Lacanian view of subjectivity: by first recognizing himself i n the mirror he is then able to recognize the other as another self like himself. However, while this implies that personal identity is formed intersubjectively, it also has rather ambivalent implications for the possibility of cultural interaction within a society. We might read the relationships between the Bunyip, the Wallaby, the E m u , and the man as representing relationships between different social groups. O n a larger social scale, the idea that personal identity is possible only through a relationship with an other like oneself implies that subjectivity (and by analogy cultural identity) is possible only within a homogenous social context. This position clearly poses problems for the notion of a national identity within a multicultural society.

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T h e conception of a cultural identity that is both multicultural and nationalistic is dependent on the ways i n which relationships between place and subjectivity are represented. A n y construction o f a national identity is going to be g r o u n d e d by specific images o f place and of the interrelationships between place and the h u m a n subject. Traditional versions of nationalism i n Australia have tended to depict individual subjectivity as shaped within a physical landscapethe social landscape is important but it is conceived of i n limited and culturally homogeneous terms as an essentially rural, colonial, and masculine world that is an extension of the "natural" physical landscape. However, insofar as the recognition of cultural diversity is dependent o n the development o f intersubjectivity, contemporary "multicultural" versions of nationalism stress the intersubjective construction of selfhood. In this sense, older forms of nationalism construct a cultural identity, inherently solipsistic, centred i n o n itselfas the image o f the mythical Bunyip gazing at his own reflection in the centre of the Australian coat-of-arms o n the cover o f The Bunyip of Berkeley's Creek implies. T h e recurring images, symbols, myths, and ideologies that constitute the picture book genre in Australia intersect with larger cultural forces and reflect shifting discourses about nationalism and multiculturalism. T h e picture book genre also has an important role i n the process o f cultural production i n that it also represents a nexus in which the issues of nationalism and multiculturalism are given a particular ideological nuance and focus as these issues interact with concerns specific to literature for children namely the development out of solipsism and the formation of subjectivity. These concerns shape the particular images of nationalism and multiculturation depicted i n picture b o o k s c h i l d r e n ' s texts always at least implicitly seek to educate their readers, so thematic concerns with subjectivity always have an enculturating function. A t the same time, however, the ways in which subjectivity is conceived of in picture books are shaped by a c o n t i n u i n g dialogue between different conceptions of multicultural and nationalist identities. T h e extent to which Australian picture books engage positively in this dialogue is dependent o n the implicit ideological shaping of images of place and subjectivity.

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1 T h e s e p a r a t e p i c t u r e b o o k a w a r d was e s t a b l i s h e d i n 1 9 5 2 , b u t was a w a r d e d o n l y f o u r t i m e s p r i o r to 1 9 7 0 . 2 S e e , f o r e x a m p l e , C o t t o n 2 4 7 ; Saxby, The Proof ofthe Puddin' 128. 77, 104-05; a n d M u i r

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