A NOT SO INNOCENT VISION: RE-VISITING THE LITERARY WORKS OF ELLEN LISTON, JANE SARAH DOUDY AND MYRTLE ROSE WHITE (1838 – 1961) JANETTE HELEN HANCOCK Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Discipline of Gender, Work & Social Inquiry School of Social Science University of Adelaide February 2007 A Not So Innocent Vision CONTENTS Abstract ……………………………………………………………………….ii Declaration……………………………………………………………………iv Acknowledgments……………………………………………………………..v Chapter One ‘Three Corner Jacks’: Where it all began…...……….1 SECTION ONE Chapter Two ‘An Innocent Presence’……...……………………..29 Chapter Three ‘Occupying an Unsettled Position’…………...…...57 Chapter Four ‘Powerful Contributors’……………………..…….76 Chapter Five ‘Decolonising the Neutral Identity’………………103 SECTION TWO ELLEN LISTON (1838 – 1885) Chapter Six ‘There is Always a Note of Striving’…………….128 Chapter Seven ‘An Apostle of Labour’…….………...…………..164 Chapter Eight ‘Those Infernal Wretches’……………………….191 SECTION THREE JANE SARAH DOUDY (1846 – 1932) Chapter Nine ‘Sweetening the World’…………...……………..220 Chapter Ten ‘Laying the Foundations of Our State’…..….……257 Chapter Eleven ‘Jolly Good Fellows’…………………..………...287 SECTION FOUR MYRTLE ROSE WHITE (1888 – 1961) Chapter Twelve ‘More than a Raconteur’…………..……………..323 Chapter Thirteen ‘Footprints in the Sand’…………..……………...358 Chapter Fourteen ‘Faith Henchmen and Devil’s Imps’......…………379 SECTION FIVE Chapter Fifteen ‘Relocating the Voice which speaks’….………...410 Chapter Sixteen ‘Looking Forward in Reverse’………………..….415 Janette Hancock i A Not So Innocent Vision Bibliography ………………………………………….……..…423 Abstract Foundational narratives constitute intricate and ideologically driven political works that offer new information about the colonial moment. They present divergent and alternate readings of history by providing insight into the construction of ‘national fantasies’ and the nationalist practice of exclusion and inclusion. White middle class women wrote a substantial body of foundational histories. They were influential mythmakers, historians in a sense, who actively manufactured compelling foundational stories of colonial possession and conquest, settler belonging and nation building. An interrogation of their writing casts fresh light on understanding how cultural discourses of national representation and identity often relied on a system of omission, misremembering and the dehumanisation of the Aboriginal peoples. This thesis examines various literary works by three little known writers, Ellen Liston, Jane Sarah Doudy and Myrtle Rose White between the years 1838- 1961 and investigates how they used prescriptive ideas on race, nation, landscape, domesticity and progress to advance notions of successful settlement in South Australia. Their narratives were much more than ‘sentimental diversions’. They were political works that operated within white structures of power, privilege and control. They were designed to validate colonial expansion and white occupation by normalising the position of the Janette Hancock ii A Not So Innocent Vision white settler subject while simultaneously marginalising the ‘disorderly’ Aboriginal presence. This thesis provides an analysis of these women’s novels, short stories, articles and unpublished manuscripts to reveal the unique agentive role that white women writers possessed. These authors didn’t just write to participate on the public scene and to advance women’s role as nation builders, they wrote as ‘politicians in print’, intent on constructing very clear ideas about social behaviour, cultural norms, national patriotism and racial hierarchies. Indeed, the concern over who rightfully belonged and who did not pervaded much of their writing, as did the derogatory scripting of others. In short, these women were assertive ‘nationalist managers’ who had a lot to say about the creation of their ‘homely nation’. By applying theoretical understandings, such as the colonial rhetoric of exclusion and control, the historicisation of whiteness and the decolonisation of ‘national fantasies’, to these women’s narratives, this body of work builds on, and advances, new understandings of white women writers and the ethnocentric cultural assumptions which coloured their writing. It not only rediscovers previously published works but also introduces new unpublished archival material as evidence for re-conceptualising the power involved in producing and consuming women’s writing from the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Janette Hancock iii A Not So Innocent Vision Declaration This work contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text. I give consent to this copy of my thesis, when deposited in the University Library, being available for loan and photocopying. SIGNED:________________________________ DATE: ________________ Janette Hancock iv A Not So Innocent Vision Acknowledgment I wish to thank Margaret Allen, my supervisor, who directed, encouraged and advised me throughout this thesis. Her incredible knowledge of feminist history and women writers inspired me to pursue the subject matter for this body of work and for this I am truly grateful. This thesis would not have been possible without the kindness and support of the various family members who held private papers on the three women studied here, and allowed me the time to view these collections. I would therefore like to thank those people who kindly shared their treasures, letting me read and photocopy old manuscripts, journals and letters. I also wish to thank the National Library of Australia for their assistance in allowing me to view the Myrtle Rose White papers and for their advice concerning the use of these papers. I want to additionally thank the Gender, Work and Social Inquiry Discipline at the University of Adelaide for the many useful comments made during departmental seminars and for the unerring encouragement and inspiration this discipline provides to its scholars. Lastly, but certainly not least, I wish to thank my family for their help, assistance and continued encouragement. To James, Eleisa and Brandon who inspired me every step of the way, especially towards the end when it seemed like a never-ending chore, I thank you dearly. Your love, empathy and Janette Hancock v A Not So Innocent Vision thoughtfulness will always be remembered. To my mother, Isabella, who asked me how it was going every time I spoke on the phone and to my father, Keith who, while on holiday at Elliston, decided to undertake a little research of his own and found me some useful information, I also wish to say thank you. Janette Hancock vi A Not So Innocent Vision ‘Three corner jacks’: Where it all began. We seek, here, to open a dialogue, an investigation, on the subject of cultural identity and representation. Of course, the ‘I’ who writes here must also be thought of as, itself, ‘enunciated’. We all write and speak from a particular place and time from a history and culture which is specific. What we say is always ‘in context’, positioned (Hall 1994: 392). I have always lived in rural South Australia. As a child I can remember running barefoot across clinging red dust and hard-baked clay pans, often feeling the stinging pain of a three corner jack piercing dirt encrusted heels. I played for countless hours in unforgiving sweltering heat, heedless of the sun’s rays on my freckles and would sit entranced on the hard besser brick of the front fence watching golden sheafs of wheat dance in the wind. But perhaps one of my most vivid memories is of sitting around the dining table listening to the smooth tones of my mother as she proudly recounted stirring tales from a bygone era. Like a spider weaving a web in the anticipation of snaring its prey, she would spin her tale, pausing at all the right moments and hastening at others. The stories she told seemed unreal and yet as a child growing up through an era of badly scripted Tarzan films and western serials, they fed my thirst for adventure. Little did I know that some twenty-five years later; one of these stories would lead me to the research I have undertaken. Little did I know that such memories now signal my own whiteness, my own appropriation of the landscape and force me to question my belonging. Janette Hancock 1 A Not So Innocent Vision This land, in which I once felt so comfortable, now begins to scratch my conscience. It irritates my sense of white identity like an annoying rash that no simple medicinal cream will sooth. Scratching it only inflames it and yet I am masochistically drawn to doing just that as I attempt to somehow muddle my way through the murky haze that is my own whiteness. I now see this land I once considered part of me, and me part of it, as Aboriginal land. This land that I was planted upon, raised and nurtured upon is a land predicated on dispossession, and as uncomfortable as it may be, upon a hidden story of genocide. It is a land predicated upon an unmarked and un-named whiteness. It may take a while to tell my story and get to the questions I seek to answer but for me this telling is needed in order to answer the question of my belonging and the questions surrounding the historical positioning of white women writers from the past. The journey, in a sense will be self-critical and will be an attempt to balance my voice with voices from the past and present. Before continuing, however, I find I must position myself as a middle-class white woman, a direct descendant of the dispossessors. I have never had to defend my colour, my nationality nor my right to live how I want to live – my whiteness has provided me with a privileged protection. For many years I have accepted this, never questioning, never wondering, never stepping outside the comfort zone. I now find, however, that it provides no safety net for my own self-analysis.