Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on David Malouf's Remembering Babylon. Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.
Remembering Babylon: Introduction
Remembering Babylon: Plot Summary
Remembering Babylon: Detailed Summary & Analysis
Remembering Babylon: Themes
Remembering Babylon: Quotes
Remembering Babylon: Characters
Remembering Babylon: Symbols
Remembering Babylon: Theme Wheel
Brief Biography of David Malouf
Historical Context of Remembering Babylon
Other Books Related to Remembering Babylon
- Full Title: Remembering Babylon
- When Written: 1993
- Where Written: Sydney, Australia
- When Published: 1993
- Literary Period: Contemporary, Postcolonial
- Genre: Historial Fiction
- Setting: Queensland, Australia in the mid-1800s
- Climax: Gemmy leaves the settlement, disappearing into the forest to rejoin the Aboriginal Australians.
- Antagonist: The other white settlers
- Point of View: Third-person
Extra Credit for Remembering Babylon
Historical Inspiration. Although Remembering Babylon is fictional, Gemmy Fairley is loosely based upon a real figure, James Morrill. Around the same time the novel takes place, Morrill was shipwrecked off the coast of Australia and came to live with a group of Aboriginal Australians, completely adopting their language, customs, and way of life for seventeen years. When Morrill eventually rejoined a white settlement, he spoke the same words that Gemmy does when he reveals himself to Lachlan: “Don’t shoot! I’m a British object.”
Babylon and Babel. The book’s title is a reference to the biblical Tower of Babel. According to the Book of Genesis, the unified people of earth intended to build the tower high enough to reach heaven, but God reacted by making them all speak different languages so they could no longer understand each other. The title hints at the importance of language in the novel and its role in the divide between the white settlers and the Aboriginal people.