Caitlin Parker

Thesis

Representations of Law in Contemporary Australian Women's Writing

Contemporary women's writing reveals a clear discontent with how the Australian legal system exercises its authority, and how it continues to promote colonial and patriarchal ideals. This thesis analyses books from three genres to answer two research questions: How do these books undermine, challenge, and question cultural ideas about law and legality? And how do readers and literary institutions mediate and interrogate these ideas? In this thesis I analyse these texts, their reception, and their mediation, through an intersectional feminist framework to understand how these texts are reflecting and influencing conversations about the law.