The Rabbits- Draft Speech Introduction- “Taking away children is a good thing

The Rabbits- Draft Speech
Introduction- “Taking away children is a good thing, right?” Taking them away from the people who cherish them with love, the most. The Rabbits always take our things that matter the most, to us numbats. Our land, our ways and now our children. “What do “The Rabbits” have to lose?” The always get what they want! For you to hear us numbats be outrageous and furious with anger, things need to change. This is our land and we have our rights.
I am here today, to talk about the visual text, “The Rabbits”, written by John Marsden and illustrated by Shaun Tan. The book talks about conflict between two diverse cultures, industrialisation and the loss of culture, which were all a disadvantage on the first colonisation. The double page that I chose to do my speech on, “And stole our children”. “The Rabbits”, is an allegory of the European settlement in Australia and defines the dispossession of the Aborigines.
Body- Shaun Tan and John Marsden have used a lot of visual techniques to help us interpret this part of the book. The main objects which are seen in this double page are the hundreds of white boxes, which look like kites in the air. They hold the baby numbats which look confused and scared inside of them. The kites have been attached by strings and are being pulled by strange machines in the air. The mothers of the numbats look as though they are dancing with their hands raised in the air, pointing towards their children. But instead you can hear them crying out for their children, for them to be returned to them.
“The Rabbits” are big and black, with their vertical backs turned against the mothers. They have red and yellow eyes which pierce through the pages and they held peacock, feather quills which mirror with “The Rabbits” evil eyes. Their pens dripping with bloody, red ink, which they use to write the bills that go through parliament. The words are written on separate pieces of paper as it shows the words being spoken in jolts and in distress. The arrows on “The Rabbits” flag and bills, point in every direction symbolising their never-ending invasion.
This double page relates to the story as it shows how the Aborigines were treated when the Europeans first arrived.