Searchlights and the Search for History in Christina Stead’s ‘Seven Poor Men of Sydney’
Abstract
Drawing on a significant motif from the novel itself, Bindella argues that the metaphor of the web helps clarify the apparent 'shapelessness' of Stead's Seven Poor Men of Sydney, showing how the the novel is governed by 'interweaving forces': 'the historical forces that would pull all the threads of the narrative into the path of spatial and temporal contiguities, and the ahistorical forces that would prevent any linear progression in time and space.'
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Published 1 June 1991 in European Perspectives: Contemporary Essays on Australian Literature. Subjects: Characterisation, Narrative techniques, Search for self identity, Christina Stead.
Cite as: Bindella, Maria Teresa. ‘Searchlights and the Search for History in Christina Stead’s ‘Seven Poor Men of Sydney’.’ Australian Literary Studies, vol. 15, no. 2, 1991, doi: 10.20314/als.a9befc6166.