Bruce Chatwin and the Aboriginal Story “Murgah Muggui”. Threading Songlines and Webs of Life

This essay works within the cultural framework of the partnership literary theory and it focuses on the importance of analogical thinking in literary criticism. Its aim is to demonstrate how the literary text (in all its possible expressions), especially in postcolonial literatures, is influenced by ‘native’ oral traditions and narratives that work within an analogical rather than logical framework. The Aboriginal mythological story “Murgah Murrui” and Bruce Chatwin’s The Songlines (1987) will be shown as working within similar narative structures. Chatwin is inspired by an Aboriginal world-view, mirrored in his use of an analogical style and language that imitates and evokes the rhythms of oral narrative. In both The Songlines and “Murgah Murrui” the expression of a partnership, life-enhancing and cooperative mode is an ancient instrument of wisdom, unveiling the immutable and sacred truths of the universe.