Cirrus@Austlit

'Helen Gamer, an Australian female novelist, has tried to describe positive female images and establish female subjectivity in her early writing career. However, The Spare Room, her recently published novel, focuses on the female friendship and care, which are fully expressed by two elderly ladies in their conflicts arising either in the therapeutic process during which one helps her cancer-haunted friend or in the different attitudes toward fighting against death. This essay makes a comparative analysis of Gamer's two novels published in 1992 and 2008 separately, trying to reveal her change in feminist subject and narrative style within 15 years.' (Publication abstract)