Women's self-portrait as self-discoveryNegotiating the gap between seeing and being seen in Drusila Modejeska's "The Orchard" (1994)
ISSN: 0210-9689
Datum der Publikation: 2006
Nummer: 27
Seiten: 151-162
Art: Artikel
Andere Publikationen in: ES: Revista de filología inglesa
Zusammenfassung
The Australian author Drusilla Modjeska combines historical and fictional characters to weave the text of her 3rd book, The Orchard (1994), which plays with two genres, the novel and the essay. The lives of women painters and their fight to pursue their careers are used to illustrate the conflicts in which the fictional characters are immersed. These painters' self-portraits become a way to explore their identities and a vehicle to achieve self-express ion by negotiating the gap between seeing and being seen. The difficult relation of women with the visual and with identity is laid down for analysis, while the author proposes a solution, attainable only after a period of solitude.