Stacey Roberts

Thesis

The working-class woman in twentieth-century Australian women's fiction

This thesis examines the role working-class women played in twentieth-century Australian women's writing, and in Australian literature more broadly. It does so by considering a selection of novels written and set in Australia that offer a representation of female working-class life, and that explore their particular considerations and circumstances. It advances the argument that working-class women occupied a specific and integral part of women's fiction at the time, a part that has not been collocated in scholarship thus far, and which allows for a more comprehensive understanding of what makes up Australia's literary legacy. Guided by aspects of New Working-Class Studies, this thesis prioritises the working-class woman as the focus of literary analysis, considers their representation with appreciation for working-class culture, and examines how class shaped women's lives at home, at work, in their communities, and in fiction. Along with historicist close reading, I offer an indication of how working-class women were perceived and conceived in women's writing and discuss the unique space they occupied in the Australian imaginary.