Authorial Purpose and Audience (VCE SSCE English): Revision Notes
Authorial Purpose and Audience
In Chapter 2 of The Hate Race, Maxine Beneba Clarke writes with clear and deliberate intentions. She aims to expose the hidden racism her family experienced in suburban Kellyville, challenge white Australian readers to reconsider their assumptions, and validate the experiences of migrant and people of colour (POC) readers. Her writing goes beyond personal storytelling – it serves as testimony against normalised discrimination, reclaims Black childhood narratives, and demonstrates resilience in the face of exclusion.
Clarke targets multiple audiences including liberal-leaning white Australians, VCE students, and diaspora communities, using intimate personal stories to provoke empathy, outrage, and social action.
She forces readers to confront Australia's subtle but persistent hostility towards non-white Australians.
Primary purpose: expose banal racism
Clarke's central aim is to reveal and condemn everyday prejudice that many white Australians fail to recognise. She focuses on what might seem like small incidents – offensive product names like "Coon cheese", assumptions about cask wine purchases, and neighbourhood gossip. These experiences appear insignificant or normal to white residents of Kellyville, but they function as warning signs for Black migrants like the Clarke family.
Throughout Chapter 2, Clarke systematically reveals racism's many forms, challenging the notion that only overt hatred counts as racism. She accumulates these anecdotes not simply to share her story or find personal healing, but to accuse Australian society of ongoing discrimination.
The chapter builds from initial unease at a hotel to the family's constant awareness of being watched in their new neighbourhood, forcing readers to connect patterns that white suburbia typically ignores or dismisses.
Clarke's purpose here is to shatter the comfortable myth of "multicultural Australia", exposing how the attitudes of the White Australia Policy continue to shape suburban life even after the policy's official end. She demonstrates that beneath the surface beauty of places like Kellyville lies a monocultural mindset that excludes difference.
Secondary purpose: validate migrant experience
Clarke also writes to bear witness for the Afro-Caribbean diaspora community. She documents how her parents, Boadie and Cleopatra, arrived in 1976 with optimism but faced crushing isolation. She acknowledges the difficult trade-off many migrants face – being spared physical violence but subjected to constant scrutiny and surveillance.
Through young Maxine's innocent joy whilst catching tadpoles, Clarke validates the resilience of children who navigate feelings of otherness. Her portrayal of the Brethren family's kindness models solidarity across difference.
Clarke's purpose is to counter white erasure in Australian history – the reduction of colonial violence to "a single page" – and to grant Black childhoods narrative dignity before bullying steals their innocence (which she foreshadows will occur).
This validation is crucial for readers from migrant backgrounds who may recognise their own experiences in Clarke's testimony. She confirms that what they have endured is real, significant, and worthy of being told.
Tertiary purpose: educational provocation
For VCE and young adult readers, Chapter 2 functions as a teaching tool for anti-racist literacy. Clarke deliberately uses the child's perspective to show how exclusion becomes normalised, whilst her adult reflections help crystallise the harm these experiences cause. She urges readers to "see what suburbia overlooks" – to develop critical awareness of subtle discrimination.
Clarke educates readers about the cumulative toll of microaggressions through specific examples like the preacher's surveillance, which exposes conservative hypocrisy. Her purpose is to equip students with the analytical tools to identify and respond to prejudice in their own contexts. The memoir serves as an activism primer, showing how personal testimony can drive social change.
Intended audiences and their effects
Clarke tailors her writing to reach several distinct audiences, using different techniques to achieve specific impacts:
White liberals: Clarke confronts complacent readers who may consider themselves progressive. She uses stark, confrontational language (explicitly naming "Coon cheese") and ironic juxtapositions to make white readers uncomfortable. Her intended effect is to move them from defensive reactions, through recognition of their complicity in racist structures, towards active anti-racism.
Migrant and POC readers: Clarke validates the isolation and othering these readers may have experienced. She combines the child's sense of wonder with adult hindsight and incorporates patois rhythm in her prose. Her intended effect is to make these readers feel seen and understood, then empowered and resilient through that recognition.
VCE students: Clarke teaches racial literacy through escalating vignettes and reflective asides that model critical analysis. Her intended effect is to leave students analytically equipped to identify racism in texts and society, whilst also developing their social awareness and empathy.
Literary Australia: Clarke challenges the Australian literary canon by using oral memoir cadence and giving her parents regal names (Boadie and Cleopatra). Her intended effect is narrative reclamation – asserting the place of Black Australian stories in the national literature – leading to broader cultural reckoning with racism.
Authorial choices reflecting purpose
Clarke employs several deliberate techniques that support her multiple purposes:
Dual voice
Clarke alternates between the innocent perspective of her child self and the knowing commentary of her adult self. The child's naivety disarms readers and draws them into the story, whilst the adult's intrusion makes accusations that cannot be dismissed as ancient history.
White readers cannot escape into the comforting idea that racism was only a problem "back then". The dual voice technique keeps the past and present in constant tension.
Anecdotal accumulation
Clarke deliberately stacks microaggression upon microaggression, building an undeniable pattern. This accumulation mirrors the actual psychological toll that repeated small acts of discrimination have on their targets. Individual incidents might be dismissed, but the pattern becomes impossible to ignore.
Circular structure from idyll to surveillance
Clarke presents Kellyville's natural beauty before revealing the prejudice beneath the surface. This circular structure forces readers to re-evaluate their initial complacency – what seemed like a peaceful suburban idyll is shown to be a place of constant watchfulness and exclusion.
Regal naming
By consistently referring to her parents as "Boadie and Cleopatra" rather than using diminutive or anglicised names, Clarke reclaims dignity and resists the tendency to render non-white Australians as "exotic" curiosities. This naming choice asserts her parents' full humanity and authority.
Clarke's credibility (ethos) as a poet, activist, and mother authenticates her testimony. The 2016 publication date, amid the resurgence of One Nation politics in Australia, amplifies the memoir's urgency and contemporary relevance.
Key quotes demonstrating purpose
Clarke's specific word choices reveal her purposes throughout Chapter 2:
Confrontation of white readers:
'Coon cheese'... slur for Black people.
Clarke explicitly names the racism embedded in everyday Australian products, forcing white readers to recognise how commodity racism operates in plain sight.
Validation of POC experiences:
Nobody knows what the Lord... Kellyville.
This quote establishes kinship with other POC readers through the shared experience of the outsider gaze – of being constantly watched and judged.
Education through metalanguage:
Takes many forms.
Clarke provides VCE students with precise language for systemic analysis, teaching them that racism operates through multiple mechanisms, not just overt slurs or violence.
Reckoning with isolation's architects:
Left to navigate racism all by themselves.
Clarke indicts those who create and maintain systems of exclusion, calling out the structures that force migrants to face discrimination without support.
Clarke's purpose permeates the entire 15-page chapter, transforming memoir into a vehicle for social movement and change.
Exam advice: crafting and creating texts
Exam Strategy: Targeting Specific Audiences
When writing your own persuasive texts inspired by Clarke's techniques, consider how to target specific audiences as she does:
For white suburban audiences: You might craft a speech asking confrontational questions like "Your Coon cheese welcomed us?" to provoke discomfort and reflection.
For migrant communities: You might write a validating personal reflection: "We tadpole-hunters endured" that affirms shared experiences of resilience.
For VCE analytical tasks: You might compose an essay: "Beneba Clarke indicts suburban racism via adult asides" that demonstrates sophisticated textual analysis.
Key structural elements:
- Shift your persona based on audience – use an outraged peer voice or a reflective mentor tone as appropriate
- Structure your response: purpose-driven contention → audience-tailored evidence → call-to-action
- Employ metalanguage such as "audience activation" and "dual ethos appeal"
- Aim for 800-1000 words
- Respond to prompts like "Testify against suburbia" or "Analyse authorial choices for effect"
Key Points to Remember:
- Clarke writes Chapter 2 with three interconnected purposes: exposing everyday racism, validating migrant experiences, and educating readers about racial literacy
- She targets four distinct audiences (white liberals, migrant/POC readers, VCE students, literary Australia) using tailored techniques for each
- Her dual voice technique – combining child innocence with adult accusation – prevents readers from dismissing racism as merely historical
- Anecdotal accumulation builds undeniable patterns of discrimination that mirror the real psychological toll on victims
- Clarke's 2016 publication amid One Nation's resurgence makes her testimony urgently relevant to contemporary Australia
- When crafting your own texts, deliberately consider audience, purpose, and appropriate techniques to achieve your intended effect