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Issue Details: First known date: 2010... vol. 32 no. 1 January - June 2010 of Acta Scientiarum. Language and Culture est. 2008 Acta Scientiarum. Language and Culture
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Notes

  • Contents indexed selectively.

Contents

* Contents derived from the 2010 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
Damned Whores or Founding Mothers? Representations of Convict Women in Australian Literature, Lou Drofenik , single work criticism
'When writing about European settlement in Australia, nineteenth and early twentieth century writers focused on the lives of the male convicts and on the English middle class who were in charge of the colony. It was only in the latter part of the twentieth century that Australian feminist writers started to take an interest in the lives of women convicts. Working from different theoretical perspectives, feminist writers patiently unravelled the lives of convict women hidden within layers of archival material.

Thus started the debate of whether convict women should be regarded as Damned Whores or Founding Mothers. Were these women all prostitutes transported for their vices? Or were they women, who struggling for survival in their native land were transported for trivial crimes in order to populate a country which had long been settled by Aboriginal nations? Were these women Founding Mothers who left a legacy not only of Australian born children but also of values embedded in Australian culture? How does Australian literature represent these women? This essay deals with female convicts transported to Australia from Great Britain and Ireland. In this essay I will look at the way writers have depicted their lives and I will examine the way their narratives helped to shape the culture in which they lived and if their legacy lives in today's Australia.'

RESUMO. 'Prostitutas amaldiçoadas ou mães fundadoras? representações de mulheres detentas na literatura australiana. Quando os autores do século XIX e do início do século XX começaram a escrever sobre a colonização europeia na Austrália, focalizavam a vida dos detentos do sexo masculino e da classe média britânica que administrava a colônia. Foi apenas na segunda metade do século XX que as escritoras feministas começaram a se preocupar com a vida das detentas britânicas enviadas para o continente. A partir de várias perspectivas teóricas, as escritoras feministas, com muita paciência, fizeram emergir a vida das detentas, oculta ou suprimida dos arquivos da colônia. Iniciou-se então o debate: seriam as detentas Prostitutas Amaldiçoadas ou Mães Fundadoras? Será que todas estas mulheres eram prostitutas enviadas à colônia pelos seus vícios? Ou eram mulheres que lutavam para sobreviver na Inglaterra e na Irlanda e, acusadas de crimes triviais, foram transportadas à colônia para povoar o continente que por muitos séculos havia sido povoado por nações aborígines? Foram estas mulheres Mães Fundadoras que contribuíram, com o nascimento de seus filhos, para consolidar os valores inerentes à cultura australiana? Como a literatura australiana representa tais mulheres? O ensaio analisa as detentas britânicas e irlandesas que foram transportadas à Austrália, examinando como vários escritores descreveram a sua vida e como suas narrativas ajudaram a moldar a cultura em que viviam e como sua herança cultural persiste na Austrália contemporânea. '(Author's abstract)
(p. 97-105)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Last amended 30 Sep 2011 10:20:44
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