Shameful Autobiographies: Shame in Contemporary Australian Autobiographies and CultureWriting autobiography is a risky business. What is shameful can be inadvertently rather than deliberately revealed. Yet reading autobiography can also be risky, as it may lead to the confrontation of shame in ourselves. Perhaps it is this element of risk, together with the magnetism of another person's confession of shameful experience, that make us such avid readers of autobiography. Rosamund Dalziell proposes that shame is the driving force in many Australian autobiographies. Indeed, she suggests that the representation of shame is fundamental to the autobiographical process. Shame seeks concealment-and this, she argues, explains both why this fascinating link has not before been explored and why, when it is pointed out, we immediately know it to be authentic. Shameful Autobiographies looks at pervasive patterns of shame in the autobiographies of such leading Australian writers as Germaine Greer, Sally Morgan, Bernard Smith, Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Morris Lurie, Ruby Langford Ginibi and Robert Dessaix. In so doing it establishes the centrality of shame to problems of Australian identity and to current political debate--for instance, it is shame that fuels angry repudiations of the so-called 'black armband' view of history. The calm clarity of Rosamund Dalziell's writing strengthens her powerful insights and arguments, the most potent of which is that autobiographical confrontion with shame can heal deep wounds, both for writers and for readers. This mature and innovative book will enrich the experience of all readers of autobiography. |
Contents
The Shaming of Australian Culture | 17 |
Immigrant Shame | 174 |
Mapping Shame | 233 |
Copyright | |
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Aboriginal autobiographies Adeodatus adult Amirah Australian autobiographies Australian culture autobiographical act behaviour Bernard Bernard Smith Brian Fitzpatrick British superiority Bundjalung Charles Perkins child childhood concealed confession confrontation critical cultural cringe Daddy death describes Dessaix discussion emotion English episode European experience of shame explores father feel friends Germaine Greer Grandpa Greer guilt Habsburg Café Henry James Hughenden Ibid identity illegitimacy illegitimate immigrant Inglis internalised interpretation Jewish Kathleen Fitzpatrick Kevin Gilbert knew Langford Ginibi literary living Love to Town Lurie's Martin Boyd Melbourne University moral Morgan's My Place Morris Lurie mother Mudrooroo myth of British narrator oppression Oxford pain parents physical political racism reader recounts relationship religious representation represented response Riemer Robert Dessaix Ruby Langford Ruby Langford Ginibi Sally Morgan's sense sexual shaming experiences silence Simon Smith social society Solid Bluestone Foundations story Take Your Love testimony writing zaydeh