Abstract
Thea Astley, a distinguished writer in Australian literature, has received many awards for her fourteen novels and two collections of short stories, yet she has never received the noteworthy attention she deserves. This paper explores different themes in the novels of Thea Astley — including Catholicism, colonialism, gender, spirituality, satire, and violence — through an examination of her major works from Girl with a Monkey (1958) to Drylands (1999). The paper argues that Astley emerged as a role model for Australian women writers, challenging the male-dominated literary world through her use of wit, irony, sharp observation, and uncompromising moral vision.
Keywords: Thea Astley, Australian literature, colonialism, Catholicism, women writers, satire, Miles Franklin Award, gender
Introduction
Thea Astley, a distinguished writer in Australian literature has received many awards for her fourteen novels and two collections of short stories. She has emerged as the most prominent woman writer in Australia in spite of the fact that she never received noteworthy attention. Astley has been awarded Miles Franklin Award — the most prestigious award for fiction four times and has also earned the most outstanding Patrick White Award for the ‘Life time Achievement in Literature’ in the year 1989. Born in Brisbane in 1925, she was educated at All Hallows Convent and at the University of Queensland. She was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Queensland. She worked as a teacher for many years.
She has attacked the philistinism and double standards of middle class small town life in many of her works. Her novels include Girl with a Monkey (1958), A Descant for Gossips (1960), The Well Dressed Explorer (1962), The Slow Natives (1965), A Boat of Home Folk (1968), The Acolyte (1972), A Kindness Cup (1974), An Item from the late News (1982), Beach Masters (1985), Reaching Twin Rivers (1989), Slow Nature (1990) and many more. According to Susan and Genomi, (2008) Thea Astley was “the only woman novelist of her generation to have won early success and published consistently throughout the 1960s and 1970s, when the literary world was heavily male-dominated.”
Writing Style and Critical Reception
In the past, her writing style received unfavorable and critical response. She was first appreciated by Brian Mathew in the ‘Life in the Eye of the Hurraicane: The Novels of Thea Astley’. He has noted: “Ashley’s first five books appeared at a time when it was a lonely business to be a woman writer in Australia.” Thea Astel received critical acclaim for most of her works but unlike writers like Patrick White, David Malouf, Peter Carey and other Australian fiction writers she did not received popularity.
She is widely praised for her narrative techniques, plot structure, the extraordinary use of wit and satire on the role of Catholicism in everyday life. Her plots are full of striking dramatic effects and exciting climax. Astley has often articulated her views by writing as a helpless outsider. All the works of Astley reflects Colonial history and the desolation caused by Colonialism.
Major Novels
Girl with a Monkey (1958) was her first novel and she admitted it to be autobiographical. The plot is structured around the farewell visit of Elsie to the friends she has made during her teaching career in Townsville. The story also highlights her relationship with the Catholic Church.
She started receiving outstanding acknowledgements for her works after the release of The Slow Natives (1965). She won her second Miles Franklin with The Slow Natives in 1965. Astley has used exclusive style in the novel by focusing on the fate of several characters and switching the attention from one to another.
The Acolyte (1972) won Thea Astley her third Miles Franklin Award. It appeared after a gap of four years. The novel deals with the life and career of blind Jack Holberg, a fictional Australian musician and a composer. The novel carries human element of love, the frustration of Paul Vesper and his brutal reaction against the selfishness of Holberg.
On the other hand, A Kindness Cup by Astley centers on the post-colonial race with all its brutality and violence. It is established by the oppression of Aboriginal people and women in the late 19th century Australian society. Thea Astley with a post colonial perspective, attempts to give a voice to the dominated group and to reconstruct the idea of normality. A Kindness Cup was the Australian Book of the Year for 1974.
Drylands by Astley was written in 1999 and was her last novel. It deals with variety of themes like Culture, Power, Politics, small-town life and society and about the superficial law and justice. It is a story of a dying land.
Conclusion
Astley has emerged as a role model for all the Australian women. She has always displayed bravery to question and criticize Christianity and the role of Church. She was well aware of the fact that she will be severely criticized by being a satirist and a woman. Throughout all her writing years she has been aware of one intention only: “I suppose, and that is to try to recapture for myself certain moments, incidents, events that have at the time acted as some kind of emotional impetus. Writing about them seemed to give permanence. Others might read what I had seen or felt and be affected too. This is what I hoped. But primarily writing is a form of self-indulgence.” (Astley 1)
Works Cited
- Astley, Thea. (1958) Girl with a Monkey. Angus and Robertson: Sydney.
- Astley, Thea. (1960) A Descant for Gossips. Angus and Robertson: Sydney and London.
- Astley, Thea. (1962) The Well-Dressed Explorer. Angus and Robertson: Sydney and London.
- Astley, Thea. (1965) The Slow Natives. Angus and Robertson: Sydney.
- Astley, Thea. (1972) The Acolyte. Angus and Robertson: Sydney and London.
- Astley, Thea. (1974) A Kindness Cup. Nelson: Melbourne.
- Astley, Thea. (1982) An Item from the Late News. St. Lucia, University of Queensland Press: New York.
- Astley, Thea. (1996) The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow. Ringwood, Vic.; New York: Viking.
- Astley, Thea. (1999) Drylands: A Book for the World’s Last Reader. Ringwood, Vic.: Viking.
- Goldsworthy, Kerryn. Undimmed Outrage. Australian Book Review, September 1999, issue no 214. pp294.
- Lindsay, Elaine. Thea Astley. Pre-Vatican II Catholicism to Post-Christian Feminism. 1 Antipodes. Vol.9 No.2.1995.
- Mathews, Brian. (1973) Life in the Eye of the Hurraicane: The Novel of Thea Astley. ‘Southern Review 6.2: 148-73.
- Susan Sheridan and Paul Genoni (2006) (ed) Thea Astley’s Fictional Worlds, Cambridge Scholars Press: Newcastle, UK.