Peter Carey’s Challenge to a ‘Christian’ Australia in Oscar and Lucinda
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jasr.30897Keywords:
Australian Identity, Christianity, Church of England, Australian BicentenaryAbstract
Throughout Australia’s European history, its political leaders have invoked a construction of Australian identity which contends that Australia is ‘a Christian country’: a claim made as recently as November 2014 by Pauline Hanson in her speech to re-launch her One Nation party. Published in 1988, Carey’s novel Oscar and Lucinda was seen by many as his response to Australia’s bicentenary, and it can be read as a challenge to several of the mainstays used in dominant constructions of ideal Australian life, its ‘Christian heritage’ included. In this article, therefore, I will explore the novel’s critique of the Anglican Church more speci?cally, and Christianity more generally, which it employs as a means of challenging the myth of Australia as a Christian nation. This discussion will call upon the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Benedict Anderson, as well as Lyn Spillman and Kate Mitchell who examine commemoration and literature as productions of cultural memory.References
Abbott, Tony. 2013. Tony Abbott on 70 Years of the IPA. Institute of Public Affairs. Online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4pA5nTr8i0 (accessed August 14, 2016).
Anderson, Benedict. 1991. [1983] Imagined Communities. Verso, New York.
Anderson, Benedict. 2002. [1998] The Spectre of Comparisons. Verso, New York.
Ashcroft, Bill. 2001. A Prophetic Vision of the Past: History and Allegory in Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda. In On Post-Colonial Futures: Transformations of Colonial Culture, 128-39. Continuum, New York.
Attwood, Bain. 2005. Telling the Truth About Aboriginal History. Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW.
Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2006. 1301.0—Year Book Australia, 2006: Religious Af?liation. Online: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/46d1bc47ac9d0c7bca256c470025ff87/bfdda1ca506d6cfaca2570de0014496e!OpenDocument (accessed June 30, 2014).
Baker, Ken. 1985. The Bicentenary: Celebration or Apology. IPA Review (Summer): 175-82.
The Bible: King James Version. 1984. Online: http://www.biblegateway.com.
Boldrewood, Rolf. 1967. [1889] Robbery Under Arms: A Story of Life and Adventure in the Bush and in the Gold?elds of Australia. Macmillan of Australia, South Melbourne, VIC.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1995 [1992]. The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field, translated by Susan Emanuel. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA.
Callahan, David. 1990. Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda and the Subversion of Subversion. Australian Studies 14(1): 20-26.
Carey, Peter. 1997 [1988]. Oscar and Lucinda. Vintage International, New York.
Carter, Paul. 1987. The Road to Botany Bay: An Essay in Spatial History. Faber & Faber, London.
Charlesworth, Max. 1998. Introduction. In Religious Business: Essays on Australian Aboriginal Spirituality, edited by Max Charlesworth, xiii-xxvi. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Christian Democratic Party. 2015. Media Releases March 20: Rev Nile Continues to Support the Assyrian Community. Online: https://www.cdp.org.au/media-releases/rev-nile-continues-to-support-the-assyrian-community/ (accessed August 14, 2016).
Church of England. 1662. The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church According to the Use of the Church of England. Online: https://www.vulcanhammer.org/whats-important-in-christianity/1662-book-of-common-prayer/ (accessed May 7, 2014).
Dahlstrom, James. 2012. Dick the Poet: ‘Allegorical Tendencies’ in Robbery Under Arms. Antipodes 26(1): 41-45.
Daniel, Helen. 1991. Peter Carey: The Rivalries of the Fictions. In International Literature in English: Essays on the Major Writers, edited by Robert Ross, 405-15. St. James, Chicago.
Darwin, Charles. 2006 [1859]. On the Origin of Species: By Means of Natural Selection. Dover Publications, New York.
Dawkins, Richard. 2006. The God Delusion. Bantam Press, Sydney.
Eldershaw, Finney. 1854. Australia as It Really Is: In Its Life, Scenery and Adventure: With the Character, Habits, and Customs of Its Aboriginal Inhabitants, and the Prospects and the Extent of Its Gold Fields. Darton & Co., London.
Gaile, Andreas. 2010. Rewriting History: Peter Carey’s Fictional Biography of Australia. Rodopi, Amsterdam and New York.
Gosse, Edmund. 1963 [1907]. Father and Son: A Study of Two Temperaments. W.W. Norton & Co., New York.
Grayling, A.C. 2009. Ideas That Matter: A Personal Guide for the 21st Century. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London.
Gupta, Prashant, and Sukhpreet Kahlon. 2006. Capillaries of History and Strategies of Discovery in Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda. Explorations in Australian Literature, edited by Jaydeep Sarangi and Binod Mishra, 112-22. Sarup, New Delhi, India.
Hanson, Pauline. 2014. Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Re-launch Speech—29th November. Online: http://www.onenation.com.au/news/pauline-hansons-one-nation-re-launch-speech-29th-november (accessed August 14, 2016).
Hassall, Anthony J. 1994. Dancing on Hot Macadam. University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, QLD.
Heilmann, Ann, and Mark Llewellyn. 2010. Neo-Victorianism: The Victorians in the Twenty-First Century, 1999–2009. Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills, Basingstoke. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230281691
Hodge, Bob, and Vijay Mishra. 1991. Dark Side of the Dream. Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
Hutcheon, Linda. 1996 [1988]. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. Routledge, London.
Irving, Helen. 2004. Trespassers in the Name of Heritage. Sydney Morning Herald. June 3. Online: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/06/02/1086058915692.html (accessed August 14, 2016).
Jacobson, Howard. 1988. A Wobbly Odyssey. Weekend Australian Magazine, February 21–22: 9.
Lamb, Karen. 1992. The Genesis of Fame. Collins Angus & Robertson Publishers, Pymble, NSW.
Lombard, Erica, and Mike Marais. 2013. Through a Sheet of Glass: The Ethics of Reading in Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda. Journal of Literary Studies 29(1): 50-66. https://doi.org/10.1080/02564718.2013.774177
Mitchell, Kate. 2010. History and Cultural Memory in Neo-Victorian Fiction: Victorian Afterimages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230283121
Mitchell, Thomas Livingstone. 1839. Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia: With Descriptions of the Recently Explored Region of Australia Felix and of the Present Colony of New South Wales. T. & W. Boone, London.
Nockles, Peter Benedict. 1997 [1994]. The Oxford Movement in Context: Anglican High Churchmanship, 1760–1875. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Owen, Mark. 1990. The Tyranny of God: A Call for Sanity in the Face of Superstition. Felicity Press, Sydney.
Petersen, Kirsten Holst. 1991. Gambling on Reality: A Reading of Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda. Australian Literary Studies 15(2): 107-16. https://doi.org/10.20314/als.1b589cab4b
Richardson, Henry Handel. 1982 [1930]. The Fortunes of Richard Mahony. Penguin Books Australia, Ringwood, VIC.
Rudd, Kevin. 2012. Transcript of Speech by Minister Rudd to Participants of the Australian Consortium for In-Country Indonesian Studies, Atma Jaya Catholic University. Online: http://foreignminister.gov.au/speeches/Pages/2012/kr_sp_120109.aspx?ministerid=2 (accessed on August 14, 2016).
Ryan-Fazilleau, Sue. 2005. Bob’s Dreaming: Playing with Reader Expectations in Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda. Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature 59(1): 11-30.
Spillman, Lyn. 1997. Nation and Commemoration: Creating National Identities in the United States and Australia, edited by Jeffrey C. Alexander and Steven Seidman. Cambridge University Press, New York. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511520938
Strongman, Luke. 2002. The Booker Prize and the Legacy of Empire. Rodopi, Amsterdam and New York.
Turner, Graeme. 1993. Nationalising the Author: The Celebrity of Peter Carey. Australian Literary Studies 16(2): 131-39.
White, Richard. 1992. [1981] Inventing Australia: Images and Identity 1688–1980. Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, NSW.
Woodcock, Bruce. 2003. Peter Carey. Manchester University Press, Manchester, UK. https://doi.org/10.7228/manchester/9780719043604.001.0001
Wright, Judith. 1953. [1946] Nigger’s Leap, New England. In The Moving Image, 23. The Meanjin Press, Melbourne, VIC.
Ziebertz, Hans-Georg. 2001. Re?ecting on the Imagining of God. In Imagining God: Empirical Explorations from an International Perspective, edited by Hans-Georg Ziebertz, 7-18. Transaction Publishers, London.
Anderson, Benedict. 1991. [1983] Imagined Communities. Verso, New York.
Anderson, Benedict. 2002. [1998] The Spectre of Comparisons. Verso, New York.
Ashcroft, Bill. 2001. A Prophetic Vision of the Past: History and Allegory in Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda. In On Post-Colonial Futures: Transformations of Colonial Culture, 128-39. Continuum, New York.
Attwood, Bain. 2005. Telling the Truth About Aboriginal History. Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW.
Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2006. 1301.0—Year Book Australia, 2006: Religious Af?liation. Online: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/46d1bc47ac9d0c7bca256c470025ff87/bfdda1ca506d6cfaca2570de0014496e!OpenDocument (accessed June 30, 2014).
Baker, Ken. 1985. The Bicentenary: Celebration or Apology. IPA Review (Summer): 175-82.
The Bible: King James Version. 1984. Online: http://www.biblegateway.com.
Boldrewood, Rolf. 1967. [1889] Robbery Under Arms: A Story of Life and Adventure in the Bush and in the Gold?elds of Australia. Macmillan of Australia, South Melbourne, VIC.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1995 [1992]. The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field, translated by Susan Emanuel. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA.
Callahan, David. 1990. Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda and the Subversion of Subversion. Australian Studies 14(1): 20-26.
Carey, Peter. 1997 [1988]. Oscar and Lucinda. Vintage International, New York.
Carter, Paul. 1987. The Road to Botany Bay: An Essay in Spatial History. Faber & Faber, London.
Charlesworth, Max. 1998. Introduction. In Religious Business: Essays on Australian Aboriginal Spirituality, edited by Max Charlesworth, xiii-xxvi. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Christian Democratic Party. 2015. Media Releases March 20: Rev Nile Continues to Support the Assyrian Community. Online: https://www.cdp.org.au/media-releases/rev-nile-continues-to-support-the-assyrian-community/ (accessed August 14, 2016).
Church of England. 1662. The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church According to the Use of the Church of England. Online: https://www.vulcanhammer.org/whats-important-in-christianity/1662-book-of-common-prayer/ (accessed May 7, 2014).
Dahlstrom, James. 2012. Dick the Poet: ‘Allegorical Tendencies’ in Robbery Under Arms. Antipodes 26(1): 41-45.
Daniel, Helen. 1991. Peter Carey: The Rivalries of the Fictions. In International Literature in English: Essays on the Major Writers, edited by Robert Ross, 405-15. St. James, Chicago.
Darwin, Charles. 2006 [1859]. On the Origin of Species: By Means of Natural Selection. Dover Publications, New York.
Dawkins, Richard. 2006. The God Delusion. Bantam Press, Sydney.
Eldershaw, Finney. 1854. Australia as It Really Is: In Its Life, Scenery and Adventure: With the Character, Habits, and Customs of Its Aboriginal Inhabitants, and the Prospects and the Extent of Its Gold Fields. Darton & Co., London.
Gaile, Andreas. 2010. Rewriting History: Peter Carey’s Fictional Biography of Australia. Rodopi, Amsterdam and New York.
Gosse, Edmund. 1963 [1907]. Father and Son: A Study of Two Temperaments. W.W. Norton & Co., New York.
Grayling, A.C. 2009. Ideas That Matter: A Personal Guide for the 21st Century. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London.
Gupta, Prashant, and Sukhpreet Kahlon. 2006. Capillaries of History and Strategies of Discovery in Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda. Explorations in Australian Literature, edited by Jaydeep Sarangi and Binod Mishra, 112-22. Sarup, New Delhi, India.
Hanson, Pauline. 2014. Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Re-launch Speech—29th November. Online: http://www.onenation.com.au/news/pauline-hansons-one-nation-re-launch-speech-29th-november (accessed August 14, 2016).
Hassall, Anthony J. 1994. Dancing on Hot Macadam. University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, QLD.
Heilmann, Ann, and Mark Llewellyn. 2010. Neo-Victorianism: The Victorians in the Twenty-First Century, 1999–2009. Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills, Basingstoke. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230281691
Hodge, Bob, and Vijay Mishra. 1991. Dark Side of the Dream. Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
Hutcheon, Linda. 1996 [1988]. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. Routledge, London.
Irving, Helen. 2004. Trespassers in the Name of Heritage. Sydney Morning Herald. June 3. Online: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/06/02/1086058915692.html (accessed August 14, 2016).
Jacobson, Howard. 1988. A Wobbly Odyssey. Weekend Australian Magazine, February 21–22: 9.
Lamb, Karen. 1992. The Genesis of Fame. Collins Angus & Robertson Publishers, Pymble, NSW.
Lombard, Erica, and Mike Marais. 2013. Through a Sheet of Glass: The Ethics of Reading in Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda. Journal of Literary Studies 29(1): 50-66. https://doi.org/10.1080/02564718.2013.774177
Mitchell, Kate. 2010. History and Cultural Memory in Neo-Victorian Fiction: Victorian Afterimages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230283121
Mitchell, Thomas Livingstone. 1839. Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia: With Descriptions of the Recently Explored Region of Australia Felix and of the Present Colony of New South Wales. T. & W. Boone, London.
Nockles, Peter Benedict. 1997 [1994]. The Oxford Movement in Context: Anglican High Churchmanship, 1760–1875. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Owen, Mark. 1990. The Tyranny of God: A Call for Sanity in the Face of Superstition. Felicity Press, Sydney.
Petersen, Kirsten Holst. 1991. Gambling on Reality: A Reading of Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda. Australian Literary Studies 15(2): 107-16. https://doi.org/10.20314/als.1b589cab4b
Richardson, Henry Handel. 1982 [1930]. The Fortunes of Richard Mahony. Penguin Books Australia, Ringwood, VIC.
Rudd, Kevin. 2012. Transcript of Speech by Minister Rudd to Participants of the Australian Consortium for In-Country Indonesian Studies, Atma Jaya Catholic University. Online: http://foreignminister.gov.au/speeches/Pages/2012/kr_sp_120109.aspx?ministerid=2 (accessed on August 14, 2016).
Ryan-Fazilleau, Sue. 2005. Bob’s Dreaming: Playing with Reader Expectations in Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda. Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature 59(1): 11-30.
Spillman, Lyn. 1997. Nation and Commemoration: Creating National Identities in the United States and Australia, edited by Jeffrey C. Alexander and Steven Seidman. Cambridge University Press, New York. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511520938
Strongman, Luke. 2002. The Booker Prize and the Legacy of Empire. Rodopi, Amsterdam and New York.
Turner, Graeme. 1993. Nationalising the Author: The Celebrity of Peter Carey. Australian Literary Studies 16(2): 131-39.
White, Richard. 1992. [1981] Inventing Australia: Images and Identity 1688–1980. Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, NSW.
Woodcock, Bruce. 2003. Peter Carey. Manchester University Press, Manchester, UK. https://doi.org/10.7228/manchester/9780719043604.001.0001
Wright, Judith. 1953. [1946] Nigger’s Leap, New England. In The Moving Image, 23. The Meanjin Press, Melbourne, VIC.
Ziebertz, Hans-Georg. 2001. Re?ecting on the Imagining of God. In Imagining God: Empirical Explorations from an International Perspective, edited by Hans-Georg Ziebertz, 7-18. Transaction Publishers, London.
Published
2017-04-06
Issue
Section
Articles
License
Equinox Publishing Ltd.
How to Cite
Dahlstrom, J. (2017). Peter Carey’s Challenge to a ‘Christian’ Australia in Oscar and Lucinda . Journal for the Academic Study of Religion, 29(3), 280-299. https://doi.org/10.1558/jasr.30897
