The Personal And The Political

The emergence of numerous feminist novels was a spectacularphenomenon in contemporary Australian literature, which had been underthe influence of and at the same time influenced the second-wavewomen’s movement and feminist literary criticism in Australia. This bodyof fiction emerged in the1970s and reached its peak in the1980s. Theoutstanding achievements not only represent the highlights ofcontemporary women’s literature, but also make anew the present sceneof literary creation in this country. However, the critical reception so farhas not done justice to all the great achievements. There is no attempt totease out a common thread to all these feminist novels, let alonegeneralize the features of feminist novels of each stage. Starting from thisomission, this dissertation attempts to redress some typical bias againstcontemporary Australian feminist novels. Contemporary Australian feminist novel writing has in effect gonethrough three main stages: the first stage witnessed the feminists’appropriation of the radical ideologies of “counterculturesub-communities”; the second stage is the one in which the feministsaimed at subverting Australian nationalist history, either the formalwritten history or the informal oral history; the third stage is the one inwhich the feminists began to reflect on the negative side of the radicalperiod, formal experiments becoming the most prominent characteristicof this stage. The title “The Personal and the Political” derives from thesecond-wave feminist slogan “The Personal is Political”, but with somealteration. This phrase is coined in order to describe the consistentconcerns of contemporary Australian feminist writing at different stages,i.e., both the private worlds in which individual women live and thepublic sphere in which women’s voices can be heard. ContemporaryAustralian feminist novel writing transgresses the borders between “thepersonal” and “the political”. Such a feat is to some extent the inheritingand development of female precursors’ artistic ideal. In addition, it notonly resonates with the feminist political tasks, but also sheds light on the postmodern preoccupation with individuality and diversity.This dissertation consists of six chapters:Chapter One serves as the introduction. It begins with a summary ofthe historical origin, social context and critical influence of Australianfeminist literature. Then it offers an overview of the contemporaryfeminist novel writing and its studies. Finally, this chapter explains theobjective, the methodology, the theoretical framework and the contents ofthe study.Chapter Two offers an analysis of Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip(1977). This chapter is mainly concerned with how the feminists in the1970s made use of the positive elements of the counterculture movement,for the sake of gaining autonomy of themselves and revising thetraditional views and lifestyles of the local community as well as thewhole society. The disquieting scenes in this book are loosely relevant tosexual liberation, women’s movement, rock and roll, drugs and the ethosof the collective household. Monkey Grip offers an honest account of thecounterculture lifestyle, and it proves the indisputable “presence” ofwomen in this minority movement. This book also discloses how second-wave feminism has affected the actual life of heterosexual womenwhich comprise the majority of the female population, and how the“body” views of those avant-garde women have influenced theirrelationship with “the other sex”.Chapter Three takes Jean Bedford’s Sister Kate (1982) as a case toexamine feminist writers’ rewriting of nationalist “myth” in the1980s.Bushrangers are an indispensable part of Australian national mythology.Ned Kelly, the most famous Australian bushranger, has detached from theoriginal implication of robbery in the bushes and has come to symbolizethe romantic and revolutionary aspects of Australian identity. Althoughhis career as a bushranger may cause some embarrassment, Ned Kelly asa legend can by no means be cut off from the “Australian-ness” and theAustralian national identity. He represents an anti-imperialist,working-class, subaltern,“Irish-inflected” national identity and at thesame time represents and reinforces the white male, heterosexual,misogynist and even the violent part of this identity. Sister Kate is deeplyconcerned with the representation of women in Australian nationalistnarrative framework. By retelling, especially by making Kate Kelly (Ned’s sister) retell the stories of the Kelly women, Bedford creativelyreinvented the “true” life story of those women eclipsed by nationalist“myth-making project”. This novel also examines how “Mateship” andthe Australian-style Masculinity conspire to repel the Other, namely, thewomen, the indigenous population, people not of the working class, theimmigrants from non-European countries, etc. Through disclosing thedark side of “Mateship” and the construction and maintenance ofMasculinity within the Kelly Gang, Bedford succeeded in lifting the veilof the nationalist “myth”. This novel also depicts Kate Kelly’s personal“odyssey” in the post-“Kelly Gang” years, during which time theheroine’s pursuit of Selfhood is inseparable from the shifting of locations.The tragic end of this young woman throws light on the importance ofuniting with other female members to create women’s space.Chapter Four presents an analysis of Kate Grenville’s Joan MakesHistory (1988) and explores the “revisionist” ideology embodied in theneo-historical fictions by feminist writers in the1980s. Above all, JoanMakes History tries to redefine the Australian Bicentenary. TheBicentenary of European settlement in Australia in1988is a significant historical period in which different political forces rush to claim theirplace, and voices from diverse interest groups vie for influence. In JoanMakes History, women not only become “present” in all the importanthistoric moments, but also gain the subjective status in the world of todayand tomorrow. The novel itself is a metaphor of women’s “presence” inthe Bicentennial discursive field. In addition, the layout, the naming offemale characters and the strategic way of dealing with the indigenousissue, all reflect the writer’s meditation on how to represent the “true”female subject. This novel also tries to change some traditional viewsabout history, rectify the traditional way of historiography, so as to comeup with a new way of compiling history from women’s perspective.Chapter Five focuses on Drusilla Modjeska’s Poppy (1990) andexamines feminist writers’ reflections on the extremist tendencies ofradical feminism in the second-wave era. Poppy is a piece of life-writingbased on the life experience of an ordinary woman—the author’s mother.This work marks a turning point of feminist writing entering a new stagein the late1980s. In this work, Modjeska made great efforts to interpretthree sets of relationships, i.e., the relationship between “Mother” and “Daughter”, that between “father tongue” and “mother tongue”, and thatbetween formal experiments and feminist tasks. Through exploring the“Mother-Daughter” relationship, Modjeska tried to point out the dubiousattitudes radical feminists held for the “Mother”. This relationship alsoserves as a metaphor for the relationship between Britain and Australia.The author’s reconciliation between “father tongue” and “mother tongue”reveals her interest in finding the most appropriate working language fora female academic who wants to write the life story of an everywoman.Poppy also exemplifies the perfect combination of carrying out formalexperiments and accomplishing feminist political tasks. Poppy declinesany definite labeling or categorization, but it is viable to view it as aserious theoretical revision of radical feminism in an unfavorable socialcontext of Australia in the late1980s and early1990s.Chapter Six is the conclusion. First and foremost, this chapter putsforward the main finding of this study, i.e., contemporary Australianfeminist novel writing has gone through three main stages. Furthermore,it points out that contemporary feminist novels stand for the harmoniousfusion of the feminists’ interest in the women’s living experiences in “the private worlds” and their political and social concerns over events in “thepublic sphere”. In doing this the study aims to dispute some critics’prejudice against the writers of contemporary Australian feminist novels,i.e., they are blinded by their own ideologies, are narrower in manyrespects, and are therefore inferior to their female precursors in the firsthalf of the twentieth century.