Home > assh > kunapipi > Vol. 10 (1988) > Iss. 1
Abstract
If the image of Aborigines in Australian literature is analyzed in semiotic terms, the signifier, the literary image, does not lead back to the implied signified, the Aborigines of‘real life’, but rather to other images. This could be seen as simply another version of Jacques Derrida’s analysis of semiosis, which might be termed the cereal box view of the sign. The person on the box is holding a box with a picture of the same person holding a box with a picture of the same person holding a box... etc. The root image cannot exist for there must always be another image on the box being held, no matter how small. In the same way, each signifier can refer only to another signifier. Any implied signified is unreachable.
Recommended Citation
Goldie, Terry, Signifier Resignified: Aborigines in Australian Literature, Kunapipi, 10(1), 1988.
Available at:https://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol10/iss1/8
