The fiction of Thea Astley: "To write as a male"?
department or school: Arts, Faculty of
department or school: English, Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Milnes, Stephen
issued: 2009-03-17T16:33:59Z
issued: 1996
related degree: Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: In the 1980s, Thea Astley asserted that she had "to write as a male" to acquire literary acceptance in the 1950s and 1960s. In making this statement, Astley outlined what it meant to write as a male and to write as a female. The increasing critical use of these statements as an explanation for the subject matter and the style of Astley's fiction, however, ignores the gendered reception of her work, generates misconceptions regarding her early novels, undervalues the continuity of her feminist critique of what she calls the "genital loading" of Australian culture, and negates her attack on genres, narratives, and plots which constrain women. Using the theoretical work of Raymond Williams, Kaja Silverman, and Rita Felski, this thesis proposes that Astley be read not in terms of "masculine" or "feminine" writing, but in terms of her political commitment to feminism. To contextualize Astley's comment, Chapter One emphasizes the masculine bias of the literary debates in. the 1950s. Chapter Two argues that the "misfit paradigm" used to read Astley's fiction obscures the feminist and class themes of her work. To counteract the view that Astley's early fiction concentrates on male characters, Chapter Three focuses on Astley's representation in The Slow Natives (1965) of wife and prostitute, and on Astley's critique of the mutually reinforcing genres to which they belong: romance and antiromance. Chapters Four, Five, and Six examine, respectively, A Descant for Gossips (1960), An Item From the Late News (1981), and Reaching Tin River (1990). This chronological sequence establishes the consistency of her feminist critique of Australian society. It also accentuates the theme of masculinity in crisis and foregrounds the way in which critics have gendered Astley's work as feminine. These chapters consider the relation between melodrama and masculinity in A Descant for Gossips, the connection between Astley's use of the female "I" and the appearance of the transvestite in An Item…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/6133
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note: THE FICTION OF THEA ASTLEY: "TO WRITE AS A MALE"? by STEPHEN MILNES M.A., The Flinders University of South Australia, 1992 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR,THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Department of English) We accept this thesis as conforming , to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA May 1996 © Stephen Michael Milnes , 1996 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada DE-6 (2788) 11 A B S T R A C T I n t h e 1 9 8 0 s , T h e a A s t l e y a s s e r t e d t h a t s h e h a d " t o w r i t e a s a m a l e " t o a c q u i r e l i t e r a r y a c c e p t a n c e i n t h e 1 9 5 0 s a n d 1 9 6 0 s . I n m a k i n g t h i s s t a t e m e n t , A s t l e y o u t l i n e d w h a t i t m e a n t t o w r i t e a s a m a l e a n d t o w r i t e a s a f e m a l e . T h e i n c r e a s i n g c r i t i c a l u s e o f t h e s e s t a t e m e n t s a s a n e x p l a n a t i o n f o r t h e s u b j e c t m a t t e r a n d t h e s t y l e o f A s t l e y ' s f i c t i o n , h o w e v e r , i g n o r e s t h e g e n d e r e d r e c e p t i o n o f h e r w o r k , g e n e r a t e s m i s c o n c e p t i o n s r e g a r d i n g h e r e a r l y n o v e l s , u n d e r v a l u e s t h e c o n t i n u i t y o f h e r f e m i n i s t c r i t i q u e o f w h a t s h e c a l l s t h e " g e n i t a l l o a d i n g " o f A u s t r a l i a n c u l t u r e , a n d n e g a t …
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 1996-11
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0087823
language: eng
degree discipline: English
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.
scholar level: Graduate
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/6133