MELBOURNE GAOL
Whenever my dad is in town he insists that we do tourist-y things. Usually not because he is interested in any particular exhibit or show that happens to be on, but because he is one of those people who simply cannot stand do be doing nothing. This tendency culminated in a visit to the Melbourne Gaol yesterday. Initially I was very unimpressed by the idea of visiting the Gaol (mostly because it is touristy, and therefore overpriced), but it turned out to be an invaluable experience.
As soon as you enter the building, memories of all the prison films and books you've seen and read culminates into this intense kind of empathetic-claustrophobia. I felt strange and trapped because you can feel the experiences of thousands before you burnt into this building. At the same time, the place holds a strange kind of beauty because of it's age and sturdiness, and the way the light falls in through the tiny windows and ceiling, forming delicate patterns of light and shadow all over the stairs and walls.The Gaol has been transformed into a kind of museum so you see things like hangman's equipment and phrenology skulls. But by far the most terrifying things are the death masks and the stories of the gaol's past inhabitants. Death masks are wax replicas of hanged men filed with plaster. They basically look like heads preserved in tar. I'm currently reading the fifth book in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, and seeing them has added a whole new intensity to my reading of the novels. One particular group of outlaws serves their own brand of vigilante justice by riding all over the realm and hanging people who they believe to be wrong-doers. And since seeing those death masks, reading about hangings has become far more visceral.
The stories of past gaol inhabitants which were plastered all over the cell walls were haunting. I know that people used to be hanged for crimes on a regular basis, but I had no idea how unfairly trials were run, even a hundred years ago. How thoroughly people were discriminated against based on race and class, and how a crime as petty as simple theft could get you hanged. I also didn't realise that until the late 1800s methods of hanging weren't standardised, and because of this many terrible accidents occurred through the hanging process - people died of strangulation lasting between eight and twenty minutes because unprofessional and ineffective methods of hanging were used.
Finally, the last hanging in Australia was in 1967. Nineteen Sixty-Seven. That is only 46 years ago. Barely more than half the span of the average Australian's life. It amazes me that the human race considers itself so civil and developed when less than 50 years ago we were still killing in an eye for an eye kind of way. This sentiment has been on my mind for the past couple of days, as I'm also currently reading The People's History of America and the second chapter is all about the treatment of black slaves in America. So cruel, and so many things I did not know about. Like how it wasn't just native Indians whose livelihoods were destroyed. Because they weren't dispirited and malleable enough to be transformed into slaves, Africans were transported to 'The New World' to work the land and provide food for the settlers. Why could the white people have not just laboured themselves?! Why did they think they were so above working for their own food. Better yet, why do we think this? It is so unnatural.
As soon as you enter the building, memories of all the prison films and books you've seen and read culminates into this intense kind of empathetic-claustrophobia. I felt strange and trapped because you can feel the experiences of thousands before you burnt into this building. At the same time, the place holds a strange kind of beauty because of it's age and sturdiness, and the way the light falls in through the tiny windows and ceiling, forming delicate patterns of light and shadow all over the stairs and walls.The Gaol has been transformed into a kind of museum so you see things like hangman's equipment and phrenology skulls. But by far the most terrifying things are the death masks and the stories of the gaol's past inhabitants. Death masks are wax replicas of hanged men filed with plaster. They basically look like heads preserved in tar. I'm currently reading the fifth book in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, and seeing them has added a whole new intensity to my reading of the novels. One particular group of outlaws serves their own brand of vigilante justice by riding all over the realm and hanging people who they believe to be wrong-doers. And since seeing those death masks, reading about hangings has become far more visceral.
The stories of past gaol inhabitants which were plastered all over the cell walls were haunting. I know that people used to be hanged for crimes on a regular basis, but I had no idea how unfairly trials were run, even a hundred years ago. How thoroughly people were discriminated against based on race and class, and how a crime as petty as simple theft could get you hanged. I also didn't realise that until the late 1800s methods of hanging weren't standardised, and because of this many terrible accidents occurred through the hanging process - people died of strangulation lasting between eight and twenty minutes because unprofessional and ineffective methods of hanging were used.
Finally, the last hanging in Australia was in 1967. Nineteen Sixty-Seven. That is only 46 years ago. Barely more than half the span of the average Australian's life. It amazes me that the human race considers itself so civil and developed when less than 50 years ago we were still killing in an eye for an eye kind of way. This sentiment has been on my mind for the past couple of days, as I'm also currently reading The People's History of America and the second chapter is all about the treatment of black slaves in America. So cruel, and so many things I did not know about. Like how it wasn't just native Indians whose livelihoods were destroyed. Because they weren't dispirited and malleable enough to be transformed into slaves, Africans were transported to 'The New World' to work the land and provide food for the settlers. Why could the white people have not just laboured themselves?! Why did they think they were so above working for their own food. Better yet, why do we think this? It is so unnatural.
