Issue Details: First known date: 2007... 2007 Circling with Ghosts: The Search for Redemption
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'This article explores the ways in which Michael Meehan's The Salt of Broken Tears (referred to hereafter as Salt) might be read as an allegorical quest for redemption. I refer also to Patrick White's Voss, to the extent that it provides an obvious antecedent, and an ironic archetype of the "explorer" tale. Voss provides a useful juxtaposition to Salt, in that they both represent quests, and futile quests at that. Both are historical novels, using a distanced past to illuminate a particular (different) present. Both novels illustrate an Australian masculinity haunted by a lost sense of "rightness": not just of "right-doing", but also of fitness, comprehensibility, belonging. The masculine is presented as both mirrored and haunted by the feminine. There are two key elements in the construction of this masculinity: violence, and deprivation or "lack". I am interested in how these elements drive the masculine quest, and how this masculine quest mirrors the broader Australian longing for redemption, or perhaps absolution.' (p.65)

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  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon JASAL Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature; Spectres, Screens, Shadows, Mirrors Special Issue Tanya Dalziell (editor), Paul Genoni (editor), 2007 Z1373275 2007 periodical issue 2007 pg. 65-76
    Note: Includes list of works cited.
Last amended 9 Aug 2010 11:04:28
65-76 http://nla.gov.au/nla.arc-63067-20090910-1633-www.nla.gov.au/openpublish/index.php/jasal/article/view/327/468.html Circling with Ghosts: The Search for Redemptionsmall AustLit logo JASAL
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