AustLit
Latest Issues
AbstractHistoryArchive Description
McLaren discusses a number of Australian novels (all recently re-issued) which have been central to developing the way in which Australians and foreigners think about white society in this continent. He distinguishes several trends and traditions in describing and characterising Australia's social and political system. Whereas Clarke and Richardson present Australia as a prison, Palmer and Waten present it as a land offering the promise of freedom. Furphy, on the other hand, is seen as a writer 'who shows us a country seeming to offer plentitude but finally withholding its promise' (54).
McLaren concludes that the 'past expressed in these fictions variously produced values of solidarity, egalitarianism, harmony with the land, but their values remain circumscribed by fear of the powerless and the dispossessed, by the arrogance of the powerful, and by distrust of the outsider. Our future will be secure only as we accept continuity with the past, enter into dialogue with the differences of the present, and accept a common responsibility towards the land that supports us' (56).
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
- Chain Letters : Narrating Convict Lives 2001 anthology criticism correspondence
- His Natural Life 1870-1872 single work novel
- The Getting of Wisdom 1910 single work novel
- Distant Land 1964 single work novel
- The Passage 1930 single work novel
- Such Is Life : Being Certain Extracts from the Diary of Tom Collins 1897 single work novel
- The Buln-Buln and the Brolga and Other Stories 1971 selected work novella short story