Stolen Car!
Hey all,
Continueing on from my last blog post, the next text I will review is not a poem, but a short story. Stolen Car was written by Archie Weller in 1978 for a magazine short story contest for Aboriginal and Indigenous writers. The story covers a wide range of political issues and reads almost as an anecdote about the social and cultural unrest of the Aboriginal community. Stolen Car is not so much a story of the car, but rather the relationship between the white community (namely the police officers) and the Aboriginal community.
The story starts with Johnny, an innocent Aboriginal country boy from the bush, starting off on an unknown journey into Perth. The boy, from a humble upbringing, is slowly introduced to the evil nature of society and grows to learn of the unfair treatment of his people by the generally perceived “superior white” people. The police bully and harass him as he finds himself incriminated as an accessory to multiple crimes. Slowly he is corrupted by his company, a gaol escapee (Wally), and so embarks on his downward spiral toward the same corruption he found in his companions.
After being thrown into gaol himself, Johnny emerges a different, darker person. Once free of hate, Johnny has become like all the others he met along his way. He despises the police, finds trust only in himself and careless for the world around him. Freedom comes when he commits his own crime of stealing a car.
The car itself is a metaphor for freedom. He finds peace and solitude whilst driving the car towards the ocean, which connotes a free and relaxing place. He enjoys the power of the car, something he has never felt before. Having all individuality and independency stripped from him by the police, Johnny is, for once in his life, completely in control and is free to choose. The car empowers him, giddy with excitement. He pushes the car further, but once again his enjoyment is cut short with the police hot on his tail. Tragically he loses control of his newfound freedom and plunges into the sand dunes at 200km/h.
In the last paragraph, the author writes, “he couldn’t control the creature he had created”. Could this refer to the car, or perhaps Johnny himself? I would put my money on the latter. The word “creature” is an interesting choice. On a denotative level, it simply describes a living being. However it usually holds a connotation of something alien and unknown. Johnny had completely changed character into something he had never known before. Living in a derelict town, corrupted by his company and beaten down by society, he had become an alien in his own body. Just as he finds freedom within himself through this car, it, like everything else he has known, was taken away from him.
Stolen Car is written using slang and phonetics to help build character and representation of the Aboriginals in the story. It is important to note this literary technique, as it is very effective in establishing the different personas and it gives a good contrast to the well-spoken white characters in the story.
The reader is positioned by the author to feel empathy toward Johnny and the beaten and broken Aboriginals. This is no doubt intentional, with the author being aboriginal himself. Sadly, this could indeed be an accurate recount of a typical Aboriginal living at the time. The story sheds light on the Aboriginal’s side of the story. Possibly perceived as menaces to society by the white community, this story challenges that mind set and reveals that the Aboriginals were in fact the victims of society – not menaces at all.
So in conclusion, was this text classified as literature according to Moon? I would argue that it is. It contains many serious themes to ponder, uses special techniques of writing, offers a different perspective of the world and provokes consideration of sociological issues. Although written in an unconventional and simple way, Stolen Car is an excellent piece of literature. It addresses serious issues and made me personally consider my own prejudices and perceptions of society.
meatspoon 
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