Abstract
This study examines the racial construction of Aboriginal identity in Thomas Keneally’s novel The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, exploring how colonial Australian society produces and sustains racial hierarchies. It focuses on the character of Jimmie, a half-caste Aboriginal man, whose fractured identity highlights the contradictions of assimilation in late nineteenth-century Australia. Jimmie’s struggle serves as a prism revealing systemic mechanisms of exclusion masked as opportunities for inclusion. Using close textual analysis grounded in postcolonial theory, the study draws on Erving Goffman’s concept of stigma to show how Aboriginal identity is marked as other, and Homi Bhabha’s theory of hybridity to interpret Jimmie’s liminal position between colonizer and colonized. The findings demonstrate that assimilation, although promoted as a path to equality, is blocked by structures preserving white dominance, transforming hybridity into a source of alienation rather than inclusion. Jimmie’s experiences reveal the tension between imposed racial classification and cultural belonging, illustrating the psychological and cultural impact of assimilation policies. Ultimately, the study demonstrates that assimilation functions not as a bridge to equality but as a mechanism of marginalization that reinforces colonial hierarchies and denies Aboriginal agency. By foregrounding the intersections of stigma and hybridity, the analysis shows how Keneally’s historical fiction critically engages with colonial discourse and resonates with contemporary debates about race, assimilation, and systemic inequities in settler-colonial societies.