Strange Familiars: Closeting Revolution in Christina Stead's Cotters' England
Christina Stead's novel Cotters' England is analyzed to determine how individuals' sexual orientations contribute to the production of history. An overview of the novel's setting at Bridgehead illustrates the factors that played a role in the development of subversive female sexu...
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| Published in: | Australian feminist studies 2000-07, Vol.15 (32), p.249-263 |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | eng |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Christina Stead's novel Cotters' England is analyzed to determine how individuals' sexual orientations contribute to the production of history. An overview of the novel's setting at Bridgehead illustrates the factors that played a role in the development of subversive female sexuality & the transference of masculine power to female characters. Although the characters Tom & Nellie, brother & sister in the novel, are viewed as symbiotic, it is contended that Tom's viewpoint is privileged over Nellie's. In addition, whereas the reader frequently has access to Tom's thoughts, it is claimed that Nellie's interiority remains mostly inaccessible. The frequency with which the words "strange" & "queer" are associated with Nellie & other women who live independent of men is discussed. In addition, it is maintained that Nellie's liminal sexuality establishes her as more of a threat to traditional boundaries than other working-class women in the novel. The connection between guilt & revolutionary sentiment within the novel is also discussed. Factors that have caused Stead's text to become overlooked within the current academic community are mentioned, eg, homophobia & misogyny. J. W. Parker |
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| ISSN: | 0816-4649 1465-3303 |