AustLit

Mayers looks at two non-Australian novels Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson and Dear Nobody by Berlie Doherty, however she also makes a brief reference to The Gathering by Isobelle Carmody. Mayers examines 'the construction of adult empowerment and child powerlessness' by drawing attention to the way the texts construct and delineate the power relationship between parent and child (109). Discussing The Gathering, Bates reveals how Carmody perpetuates 'adult knowledge and adolescent ignorance by perpetuating a unitary meaning of truth' which position the readers to 'identify totally with the youths as the principle focalisers in the novel' (112). This technique ultimately works to reinforce the discursive practices which support and maintain the privileging of certain groups and the inferioroty of others, in this case the binary opposition of dominant-subordinate which structures adult/child relationship (112).