The first chapter has great significance, as it orients the reader towards the theme of language within the novel. This concept is most profound in chapter one, in which Gemmy has his first encounter with the settlers. The Hebrew word balal, which means to confuse or confound is the origin of the name Babel, and is an allusion to the confusion and anxiety suffered by the settlers as they come to terms with this new language. Throughout the novel, language is significant, as it symbolises the differences between cultures and the confusion that occurs when two cultures intergrate. The significance of the loss of a homogeneous language serves as a representation of the significance of language and culture a theme expressed within Malouf’s Remembering Babylon. The scripture serves as an etiology of cultural differences, and the loss of a communal language shared by all of humanity.

The title of Remembering Babylon is a reference to the biblical tower of Babel mentioned in Genesis 11:1-9. Therefore is the name of it called Babel because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech (…)Īnd they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top unto heaven and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.Īnd the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.Īnd the LORD said, Behold, the people one, and they have all one language and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

Remembering babylon