FOR THE TERM OF HIS NATURAL LIFE BY MARKUS CLARKE

PRESENTER: SERDAR DOLKUN

Prologue

Domestic tragedy.

The murder and the unexpected death.

The trial and the first life sentence of Rufus Dawes.

Incidents happened on the Malabar

The fire incident became the cover-up for Rufus

Dawes secret identity.
The first mutiny and it’s failure.

The Crow’s revenge and Dawes’ second life sentence.

The convict colony on Macquarie Harbor

Transportation of the convicts to Port Arthur.

Rufus Dawes’ suicide’s attempt.
Rufus Dawe’s vs nature.
The second mutiny

The convicts took over the ship Osprey.

Hope for survival on Harbour island.
The survival with the canoe.
Sylvia’s memory lost.
The convict colony on Port Arthur

The capture of the convicts from the ship Osprey.

John Rex’ prison break and later his confession to murdering Lord Bellasis .

Gabbet is Alexander Pearce in real life. (The Cannibal)

Dawes disguised as Reverend North and escaped from the colony with Sylvia.

Sylvia regained her memory about Rufus Dawes and their tragic death.
Ironic reversals in the novel

• E.g.,1 ‘‘Rufus Dawes’ well-intentioned desire to warn the captain and crew of the mutiny
planned on the convict ship Malabar leads to his being punished as the ringleader of the
mutiny’’ (Colmer, 3).
• E.g.,2 ‘‘There is the additional irony that his quixotic action was carried out in ignorance of the
fact that her secret was safe, and the deceived husband had died before carrying out his plan to
disinherit his ‘son’ Richard/Rufus in favor of his nephew, Maurice’’ (Colmer,3).
Ironic Reversals in real life

• E.g.,1 ‘‘In England all his youthful expectations were frustrated and
reversed when the large inheritance of 70,ooo pounds he expected from his
father turned out to be non-existent. As a result, he left England to seek
fame and fortune in the antipodes but found it necessary to plunge
desperately into the competitive life of Melbourne journalism to survive’’
(Colmer, 3).
• E.g.,2 ‘‘Alcohol, to which he turned as an escape from hackwork and
penury, proved a guilty bondage, as it is for the strongly-drawn fictional
character, the Reverend James North’’ (Colmer, 3).
Redemptive sacrifice and suffering

• E.g.,1 ‘‘The redemptive structure reveals a process of defeat turning into triumph
through sacrifice and love, a love that is symbolized in the somewhat sentimental but
traditional symbol of the rose that Dawes treasure because it is associated with the
angelic Sylvia’’ (Colmer,3).
• E.,2 ‘‘Dawes discovers his religious need after being brutally flogged, and calls for a
Chaplin, it is the superficial .Meekin who comes, not the sympathetic, guilt-stricken
North. Then the villainous John Rex’s manipulation of the others by means of empty
confession and false piety exposes Christian values in an ironic light’’ (Colmer,3).
WORK OF CITATIONS

• Colmer, John. “For the Term of His Natural Life: A Colonial Classic Revisited.” The
Yearbook of English Studies, vol. 13, 1983, pp. 133–44. JSTOR,
https://doi.org/10.2307/3508117. Accessed 4 Oct. 2023.