AustLit

This article looks at the ways in which settlers from the first wave of migration to South Australia constructed a sense of regional identity in the colony through the genre of memoir, and at the consequent process of mythologising a regional legend of foundation.

The article explores an aspect of Australian colonialism through a reading of Ruhen's 1957 novel. The novel, 'a sophisticated text that critiques colonialism (as violent, illegitimate and destructive to indigenous cultures)', is, however, also seen as producing 'a story that legitimates, reinforces and justifies the process of colonisation'. Concentrating on two particular scenes at the beginning and the end of the novel respectively, the article is 'an analysis of how colonisation and dispossession are ultimately legitimated in this novel through gendered representations of assimilation and elimination' (135).

Discusses the issues involved in the writing of biography and presenting the biographical subject, using as examples two recent biographies of Frank Hardy.

The article surveys the Australian English 'celebrated, resurrected and invented by Barry Humphries via his main characters, Barry McKenzie, Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson'. It explores how Humphries's satire reflects, and how it influenced Australian English; that is, which expressions Humphries discovered in the lexicon, and which expressions he invented in the attempt to expose what he perceived as the vulgarity and grotesqueness of everyday Australian life. It also offers some explanation for 'Humphries' shift from satire towards vaudeville drag shows' (160).