The two texts under study are the first chapters of “Pacific Paradises, The Discovery of Tahiti and Hawaii” by Trevor Lommis and “The Fatal Shore” by Robert Hughes. They are both historical accounts of the United Kingdom’s settlement in new territories. The texts detail the period of the mid 18th century, but they were written during the 21th century.
The similarities and differences approaching the subject will be analysed through three main points: the general context and its presentation, the description of the new territories, and its population and the enumeration of the problems the colonists had to overcome.
Firstly, we will talk about the general context of the settlements. As we have said before the texts are both introductions novels. By consequence, these texts are supposed to prepare the reader for the body of the book that comes after it. Here we can see that the authors decide to give many pieces of information to the readers concerning the period in which the story takes place (text1: “On June 1767”, “text2: “In 1787”). We also have information concerning the king of the period (Text2: “King Gorge III”).
But, the second text offers a precise description of the arrival, the first one only offers a vague description of it: (text1: “the huge mass of land”, text2: “Australia”).
This leads us to the second point, the description of the territories and its population, which is a key element of the stories. On the one hand, we can observe that from the very beginning of the story the second text offers a precise description of the territory “the color of the Australian bush”. We can notice that the first text is less precise concerning the geographical environment: “Unknown waters”. But both authors provide the reader enough descriptions to let him imagine what these territories look like. On the other hand, we can observe that the authors are both very precise concerning the description of the people living in the territories “(text2: “the Australians