Expulsion and Return
As an Australian author exploring his own connection to the English literary tradition, Carey highlights the unspoken elements in texts and elevates Magwitch from a minor role. Jack Maggs delves deeply into the themes of exile and return, as well as cutting away and revising. Carey critiques the Victorian penchant for closure, which often led to the demise of troublesome characters or their banishment to the colonies, never to be revisited. Instead, he aims to explore his post-colonial identity and heritage in a society built by convicts by reworking the narrative of the returning "transport" and reimagining Magwitch. In Great Expectations, Magwitch is mostly depicted as a passive figure upon his return to England. He tells Pip, "And this . . . and this is the gentleman what I made! The real genuine One! It does me good fur to look at you, Pip. All I stip 'late is, to stand by and look at you, dear boy!"
Magwitch's mere presence as a returned convict demands secrecy and submission to Pip, who has the freedom to move about the city. Carey, however, finds this stagnant depiction of Magwitch unsatisfying and, in his reimagining, elevates him from the sidelines, giving him significantly more importance.
Cultural Identity and Post-Colonialism
Carey's portrayal of the unchanging Magwitch serves as a metaphor for his view of the dynamics between British and Australian cultures. Just as Magwitch is unable to assimilate into mainstream British society, similarly, the (white) Australian author is often marginalized from the collection of classic British literature. Due to their colonial heritage, these authors face challenges in establishing a distinct Australian identity—a complex issue, especially given the marginalized status of Australian Aboriginals—while trying to shed the cultural influences of the past. In his reinterpretation of Great Expectations, Carey shows a hesitance to fully discard this history, opting instead to rearrange it. By choosing to adapt an existing work rather than creating something entirely new, Carey positions his connection with Britain in a somewhat Oedipal context. He aims to confront the legacy of British supremacy by revising or "destroying" the dominant narrative that has historically reflected life and repeatedly doomed Australians transported to death.
Cultural Superiority and Revisionism
Equally important to Maggs's understanding of his own identity is Carey's view of the England to which his convict returns. By crafting a character who has been transported back and possesses the ability to read, write, and quote Shakespeare, Carey seeks to question the smug British belief in cultural superiority. The negligence of the motherland—illustrated by Dickens in his dismal setting, Little Britain—is emphasized through the allegorical character Ma Britten. She is Maggs's grotesque adoptive mother, a purveyor of illegal abortion pills who steers him toward a life of crime.
The stagnation of British culture is powerfully depicted through the now marginalized Pip, reimagined as the selfish and negligent Henry Phipps, and through the abortion of the author's unborn child by Oates's sister-in-law, Lizzie. This aborted fetus and Lizzie's subsequent demise symbolize the creative irresponsibility of the colonizer-artist. Oates's affair with his wife's sister serves as a metaphor for his encroachment into the "other" realm of the Australian settler or, more broadly, for the interference of the imperial nation overseas. The destructive consequences of Oates's actions are underscored when he incinerates the blood-stained linen in which Lizzie perished:
It was Jack Maggs, the murderer, who now emerged from the flames. Jack Maggs ablaze. Jack Maggs blossoming, menacing, toxic. Tobias saw him leap like a demon. Saw him hobble, as if his burning limbs still bore the weight of convict chains. He witnessed his head transform until it was bald, etched with deep wrinkles that fractured and floated, glowing, into the room.
Just a few pages earlier, Maggs had forced Tobias to destroy his notebooks, and in this passage, the two acts of burning are mirrored. A new Maggs emerges like a phoenix from the ashes in a dramatic parody of the revisionist process, enabling Oates to finally envision the violent demise of his oppressed convict following the tragic incident of Lizzie's death.
Future and Identity
Peter Carey does not encounter the same challenge of bringing closure as his nineteenth-century predecessors. Unlike Dickens or Oates, he does not feel obligated to end Maggs's story negatively. Significantly, Oates's novel is titled The Death of Maggs, whereas Carey's is the less ominous Jack Maggs. Carey is more interested in the future that unfolds once the past is reexamined. Consequently, the Magwitch of the 1990s is convinced by the aptly named Mercy (a trait noticeably absent from the institutions portrayed in Great Expectations) to return to his children and his thriving life in the new colony, letting go of his longing for the "old country." This reimagined conclusion subtly suggests that contemporary Australia should relinquish its sentimental attachment to British culture and progress towards establishing a new national identity, aiding Australians in reconciling with their colonial past.
