AustLit

'Ubiquitous, highly visible, nonspecific to geography, history, race, or sex, dwarfism's connection with Australia's mythic and literary histories is remarkable enough to suggest here that it occupy its own subgenre in literature, the zwergroman (m). Australia's branding as the "Antipodes" geographically recalls its colonial past; mythographically the imaginative configuration was as an underworld of opposites ruled by the diminutive King of the Antipodes. Thus, the zwergroman is frequently fashioned from Celtic myths of the colonizing power along with the shaping power of colonial processes. In addition to introducing the conventions of the zwergroman and demonstrating the significance of dwarf characters to Australia's pre- and postcolonial narratives, this article gradually introduces concepts from disability studies (through the scholarly work of Erin Pritchard, David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder, and others) by examining representations and cultural meanings imposed on dwarf characters prior to the counter histories of twenty-first-century short-statured scholars whose demand for personhood required an engagement with subjective and experiential realities. The novels discussed (1970–94) represent a cluster of dwarf-centric novels by notable writers, all able-bodied at the time of writing (excepting Patrick White). They include C. J. Koch, The Year of Living Dangerously (1978; filmed 1982); James McQueen, Hook's Mountain (1982); Ruth Park, Swords and Crowns and Rings (1977); Peter Carey, The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith (1994); and Patrick White, The Vivisector (1970).' (Publication abstract)

'Ruth Park’s award-winning novel, Swords and Crowns and Rings had a fascinating, and so far largely unknown, journey to publication. This article traces the editorial and publishing history of the novel and finds that was Park was sent edits that would have limited the agency and nuance of her short-statured character, Jackie Hanna. From my surprising discoveries in the archive, this paper demonstrates that Park resisted these edits, and in doing so acted as an advocate on behalf of her disabled protagonist. She preserved her vision for a character who is a fully rounded human with the intention of conveying his humanity. Combining the tools of critical disability studies with original, archival research and close reading, this analysis establishes that Park largely avoids the narrative prosthesis that commonly troubles ableist renditions of disabled characters (Mitchell, Snyder 2001). This article demonstrates that it is at every level of publishing, from authors through to publishers and editors, that ableist attitudes can inhibit authentic representations of disability in literature.' (Publication abstract)

'This study is based on several assumptions: it recognises that the person who is deformed has an existence both in the world and in the novel; it recognises that in both the world and the novel the deformed-being has borne a negative
stigma. It also recognises that a literature reflects its culture, as must the characters who exist within that literature. As Harry Heseltine states succinctly: 'No writer invents his metaphors ex nihilo; in the long run he finds them somewhere in the range of possibility that his culture makes available to him'. This study asks: can that most marginalised of all characters, the deformed-being, provide any revelations about the self, about the novel, the reader of the novel, and the culture within which all exist? The answer in each case is an unequivocal yes. Each chapter is devoted to a particular character in a major Australian novel; comparisons are made with other literary works, Australian and non- Australian. The individual chapters reveal the metaphors and symbolism attached to the character's particular deformity, and demonstrate how the deformed body informs the body of the text. The whole study presents an overall picture of deformity as a fairly consistent and an often-utilised metaphor. Chapter One provides a general survey of deformity as a metaphor. Chapter Two looks at Louis Stone's Jonah (1911), in which the hunchbacked larrikin character is a post-colonial interpretation of the traditionally conjoined outcast states, deformity and criminality. In Chapter Three the dwarf Jackie in Ruth Park's Swords and Crowns and Rings (1977) is seen as a metaphor for non-conformity during a time when Australia was signalling a resistance to the Old-World moulding. Chapter Four is also concerned with the post-colonial identity as revealed through the dwarf and half-caste Billy Kwan in C. J. Koch's The Year of Living Dangerously (1978); it questions an identity that is 'imposed', whether at a national or individual level. In Chapter Five the relationship of the hunchbacked dwarf Rhoda Courtney with her adopted brother, the artist Duffield, in Patrick White's The Vivisector (1970) places deformity in the tradition of the kunstlerroman. In Chapter Six, Koch's The Doubleman (1985) is shown to combine elements of the kunstlerroman while raising questions about the post-colonial identity through the dualities arising out of the doppelganger: spiritual, bodily, and cultural displacement are all focussed by the device of Richard Miller's lameness. Chapter Seven moves from deformity that is congenital or disease-originated, to disability or deformity that is human-caused (either by negligence or intervention), thus allowing a discussion of the importance of the etiology of deformity as a device: in Thea Astley's The Acolyte (1972) Jack Holberg's blindness is caused by fly-strike. Chapter Eight examines the use of terror evoked through archetypal evolution of the lame crone Hester Harper in Elizabeth Jolley's The Well (1985). In Chapter Nine the crypto-dwarf Arthur Blackberry in James McQueen's Hook's Mountain (1982) is portrayed with the accompanying baggage of dwarf mythology; his implicit demise raises questions about our responses towards the deformed. Chapter Ten is a literary history of eugenics, as seen primarily through Eleanor Dark's Prelude to Christopher (1934) and Christina Stead's The Man Who Loved Children (1940). The conclusion discusses the initial, problems of dealing with a taboo topic, along with reasons for excluding autobiographical treatments of deformity, biographical portrayals, war novels, and children's literature. Finally, Leslie Fiedler's comment that deformity is the reigning metaphor of our age is shown to be particularly apt in an Australian context.'

Source: Abstract.