Colonization

The novel questions the moral failings of colonization through the perspectives of three females: Mathinna, Evangeline, and Hazel. These perspectives function to highlight the experience of the most powerless in a colonial society, native people and women. The novel focuses on the British colony of Australia in the early Victorian Era. The government’s motivations are self-serving, driven solely upon power and expansion, the price of which is paid with the lives of those who do not properly conform to the social rules of Victorian British society. In this way, the theme evokes the titular concept of exile.

Mathinna represents the Aboriginal perspective of colonization that highlights the systematic erosion of a rivaling culture. The British take control over the Palawa by using government sanctioned violence that authorized settlers and convicts to “capture or kill any natives on sight” (76). With their numbers dwindling, they continued to...