Dan is a schoolteacher in the small town of Cobargo. He and his wife, Emily, have one daughter who he dislikes: Dorothy, who has Down syndrome. He partially blames Emily for bearing the child and for liking her. He storms home from school early one day, incensed by a boy's rude comment about Dorothy.
Dorothy leaves the house to Emily's dismay. Without Emily's knowledge, she visits Sister Paula at the convent, who is of similar age to Dorothy. Sister Paula guards her from the sight of others, and treats Dorothy to 'afternoon tea' beans through the garden fence with leaves for plates and acorns for cups.
Back home for tea with her parents, Dorothy copies Sister Paula, learning to cover her mouth while eating. Emily considers this a sign of improvement and looks to Dan, but Dan leaves without seeing.
When Carrie Grant's mother dies, she is left alone to take care of her widowed, blind father, Hector. Carrie's siblings leave the house, which Carrie resents: Hilda is married and caring for her children, and Nettie is a nurse at a hospital.
Nettie comes home for the funeral; she tries to help around the house, but only leaves a mess for Carrie to clean up.
'The fictional work of Olga Masters primarily focuses on family and domestic life in rural New South Wales between World War I and World War II. This article examines some forms of pernicious oppression and constrictions that overshadowed the lives of the author’s characters and, in particular, the constraints enforced upon her female characters. The article explores how the notion of community in the author’s fiction prefigures both as pervasive and invasive modes of social power and coercion. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s seminal work Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1995), the article contends that the community acts as a collective presence that subjects its members to a form of overarching disciplinary power through the use of constant surveillance, supervision and control.' (Publication abstract)
Unsettling Stories : Settler Postcolonialism and the Short Story Composite
Newcastle upon Tyne
:
Cambridge Scholars Press
,
2010
Z1784101
2010
single work
criticism
'The first study of the synergies between postcolonialism and the genre of the short story composite, Unsettling Stories considers how the form of the interconnected short story collection is well suited to expressing thematic aspects of postcolonial writing on settler terrain. Unique for its comparative considerations of American, Canadian, and Australian literature within the purview of postcolonial studies, this is also a considered study of the difficult place of the postcolonial settler subject within academic debates and literature. Close readings of work by Tim Winton, Margaret Laurence, William Faulkner, Stephen Leacock, Sherwood Anderson, Olga Masters, Scott R. Sanders, Thea Astley, Tim O'Brien and Sandra Birdsell are positioned alongside critical discussions of postcolonial theory to show how awkward affiliations of individuals to place, home, nation, culture, and history expressed in short story composites can be usefully positioned within the broader context of settler colonialism and its aftermath' (publisher website).
Unsettling Stories : Settler Postcolonialism and the Short Story Composite
Newcastle upon Tyne
:
Cambridge Scholars Press
,
2010
Z1784101
2010
single work
criticism
'The first study of the synergies between postcolonialism and the genre of the short story composite, Unsettling Stories considers how the form of the interconnected short story collection is well suited to expressing thematic aspects of postcolonial writing on settler terrain. Unique for its comparative considerations of American, Canadian, and Australian literature within the purview of postcolonial studies, this is also a considered study of the difficult place of the postcolonial settler subject within academic debates and literature. Close readings of work by Tim Winton, Margaret Laurence, William Faulkner, Stephen Leacock, Sherwood Anderson, Olga Masters, Scott R. Sanders, Thea Astley, Tim O'Brien and Sandra Birdsell are positioned alongside critical discussions of postcolonial theory to show how awkward affiliations of individuals to place, home, nation, culture, and history expressed in short story composites can be usefully positioned within the broader context of settler colonialism and its aftermath' (publisher website).
