The 'natural outlawry of womankind': four artists in the novels of Christina Stead

Abstract

This essay considers Christina Stead's exploration of those women artists in her oeuvre to whom she attributes embedded artworks, Catherine Baguenault in Seven Poor Men of Sydney, Louisa Pollit in The Man Who Loved Children, Teresa Hawkins in For Love Alone, and Eleanor Herbert in Miss Herbert (The Suburban Wife). In giving these putative women artists their voices, Stead not only empowers women in the social formation she depicts, but she explores unconsciously the nature of her craft. These women's narratives manifest various characteristics that only recently have become the subject of debate for feminist theorists. Sometimes, with the partial exception of Eleanor in Stead's novels, the artworks are antagonistic to androcentricism in general, and to the dominant discourse in particular. In combatting the Law of the Father and in attempting an alternative discourse they connect with an idea of the mother; their creativity expresses their sexual desires or fears which are often incestuous, while death or deathliness is implicit in the act of narration itself.

Opsomming
In hierdie opstel word 'n beskouing gegee van die verkenning van vroulike kunstenaars in Christina Stead se oeuvre. Sy stet vroulike kunstenaars en hut werk voor: Catherine Baguenault in Seven Poor Men of Sydney, Louisa Pollit in The Man Who Loved Children, Teresa Hawkins in For Love Alone, en Eleanor Herbert in Miss Herbert (The Suburban Wife). Deur hierdie fiktiewe vroulike kunstenaars self aan die woord te stet, gee sy nie net aan vroue 'n magsposisie in die samelewering wat sy uitbeeld nie, maar verken sy onbewustelik die aard van haar eie kunstenaarskap. In hierdie vertellings word verskeie eienskappe gemanifesteer waaroor feministiese teoretici onlangs eers begin debatteer het. In Stead se romans is die kunswerke soms, met die gedeeltelike uitsondering van die van Eleanor, antagonisties teenoor manlike gesentreerdheid in die algemeen en teenoor dominerende gesprekvoering in die besonder. In hierdie vroulike vertellings word daar gestry teen die Wet van die vader-figuur en word 'n alternatiewe gesprekvoering geskep waarin die idee van die moeder na vore kom; hul seksuele begeertes of vrese, wat dikwels bloedskending is, word voorgestel deur hul kreatiwiteit, terwyl die dood of doodsheid implisiet in die vertelhandeling aanwesig is.