Jessica would fit right into today’s world. She is a tomboy who can ride and shoot, and tell it like it is, yet has empathy for the poor and downtrodden outcasts, a fighter for their rights. She won’t give up.
Unfortunately, Jessica was born in the late 1800s.
Jessica is the heartbreaking yet inspiring story of a girl growing up in the early twentieth century. Probably much of the story is romanticised, yet it’s also told in candid narrative that sets you in sympathy with Jessica straightaway. You can picture the bleakness of rural Australia; the harshness of living on the land, where everything seems to die before its time and of unnatural causes; feel the heat and the sweat and the flies. At the same time, you can feel Jessica’s strength and determination to make the most of things.
The Story
Jessica is brought up in a household of Mum, Dad, and two kids; but it is anything but functional. In a country town where sons are needed to help on the land, her father Joe rears her to help out with physical outdoors work, whilst the other daughter, Meg, is the apple of their mother Hester’s eye. Meg is raised very much as a lady, yet this only runs surface deep; Jessica, for all her rough boyish ways, has a soul much purer and kindlier than Meg’s, which has been poisoned by the schemings of Hester.
As a tomboy, Jessica learns what it is to be an outcast. She cannot see her own attractiveness, paling into insignificance around Meg’s beauty and genteel ways; she is not accepted by those of her own sex, and not accepted by the boys either. She has to constantly fight to be seen to be the boys’ equal, despite lesser pay; but when she excels, she is resented for it. This results in a cruel prank which has the unexpected consequence of badly injuring one of only two good mates she has (both males), rendering a young man full of promise with severe brain injury. From there starts a chain of events in which Jessica is doomed.
In the meantime, her own mother schemes against her and conspires to steal away the things Jessica holds most dear for Meg, including her best friend Jack.
Jessica’s Character
Jessica’s actions throughout her life, although commendable, do nothing but reinforce her status as an outcast. She befriends and helps a simpleton and murderer; a drunken barrister; a Jew in an insane asylum. It’s a line-up of characters which would seem over the top at times, except for the fact that it’s based in truth and is told with a candid realism – Jessica is not thanked by anyone else in society, only those she befriends.
She creates history with a Court case around the stolen generation of Aboriginal children. She would probably be a hero in today’s world; however, there are other heroes back in Jessica’s day, such as returning war veterans, whom the Government wants to gift with land that the unfortunate Aborigines hold. People like Jessica are of no significance in society.
Controversial Issues
The story touches upon issues such as the treatment of those in insane asylums, and how easy it was to get someone committed and out of the way.
It also focuses on the treatment of Aborigines. When Ada Thomas shoots at Aborigines begging for food on her land with birdshot and is fined ten shillings, and is then fined a further one pound ten shillings for contempt of Court, “the crowd outside the window would quip that being rude to a magistrate was a threefold bigger crime than shooting an Abo.”
The “stolen generation” becomes a focus in the latter part of the tale, with a history-making Court case. The issues raised are the notion that taking Aboriginal children away from their parents and assimilating them into white society is for their benefit, as the Aborigines are ignorant and heathen – despite that the mother was educated and Christian. It raises other issues as to the real reasons why Aboriginal children might have been taken, including the dying out of their race, which would also remove the pesky problem of their holding onto land that war heroes were supposed to have.
A smaller issue touched on is that of religion, earlier in the book, where the Thomas women are allowed to rule the district and interfere with things not of their concern, simply because they make the largest donations to their Church. Only those that they deem fit to receive charity receive it. The Aborigines are seen to be the property of the Lutherans.
One of the overriding issues earlier in the piece is the sexism displayed against Jessica, where she is not accepted by either sex because of being a tomboy. In large part, this is Joe’s doing, because he needed one of his daughters to take on a strong role to help him on the land; however, Jessica’s strong character takes to it well. Jessica is too “real” to conform to the traditions of society.
Overall
Overall, Jessica is a book that keeps you thinking, without being heavy in its language. Even with the issues raised of sexism and racism, it is not done in such a way that you feel bombarded with righteous rhetoric. How much of the book sticks to the original story may be debatable, as not much is found on Jessica Bergman; however, it doesn’t feel romanticised and unrealistic. Although Jessica is pure-hearted, there is enough stubbornness to her, interspersed with swearing, to stop her from being a goody-two-shoes and to make her a likeable character, and her story a good one to read.
Publishing Details
Published by Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 1998
ISBN 978 0 14 300461 5
Janina-Monique Wildewood - My passions are reading, travel, and research, and to be able to combine all these with my main passion, writing, is even better! I ...
