Naslov
What the mishef is this (immigrant) bonnet doing here? Mary Helena Fortune in the Age of Australian Nationalist Metanarrative

Autori
Klepač, Tihana

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Poglavlja u knjigama, znanstveni

Knjiga
Migrant Australia From Botany Bay to Manus Island

Urednik/ci
Althans, Katrin, Kern, David, Neumeier, Beate

Izdavač
WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier

Grad
Trier

Godina
2022

Raspon stranica
117-132

ISBN
978-3-86821-935-7

Ključne riječi
australia, nationalist metanarrative, Mary Helena Fortune

Sažetak
As Russell Ward writes in A Nation for a Continent, the period from about 1870 till the Great War marked the high tide of European, and thus also British, imperialism (4). It was the period of great movement of peoples, thus far unprecedented. It was also a period when most white-skinned people believed in the natural superiority of the white race. In Australia the belief was reflected in a call for national unity which presupposed the Anglo-Saxon race. As the nationalist metanarrative was being formulated in the latter part of the nineteenth century, the nation became increasingly exclusionist. Thus the popular Bulletin in 1893 could proclaim that “The cheap Chinaman, the cheap nigger, and the cheap European pauper [are] to be absolutely excluded” from immigrating to Australia. The movement eventually became a policy with nation-wide legal force titled White Australia policy. In 1850s Irish born Mary Helena Fortune immigrated to Australia via Canada to meet her father on the Australian diggings. This remarkable, eloquent woman produced marvellous memoirs, partly fictionalised, a common Victorian genre, which reveal extraordinary times in Australian history when people of different race, profession and social standing all worked side-by-side and were, as Fortune claims, respected based on character, not nationality or immigrant status. However, Fortune’s descriptions of city life at the close of the century – looking for lodgings or a job – reveal that she felt doubly rejected, as an immigrant and as a woman, her perfectly adjusted bonnet ties and her respectable attire not guaranteeing respect and safety. Therefore, she compares herself to a spider in the webs of the Australian society of the day.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Filologija, Povijest, Književnost, Rodni studiji

POVEZANOST RADA