The Price of Freedom in The Childrens Bach and Joan Makes History :: Childrens Bach Essays

The Price of Freedom in The Childrens Bach and Joan Makes level It has been suggested that the modern womans quest for emancipation in contemporary Australian belles-lettres is shown to have been a visitation2. I believe that this suggestion is invalid. non because the statement is true or untrue, but because the concept of womens emancipation is so fraught to begin with. To emancipate is to free from restraint of any kind, in particular the inhibitions of tradition3. While it is obviously true that the emancipation of women from some traditions and restraints would be beneficial, both individually and to the parliamentary law as a whole, to step completely outside of the bounds of society can be read not only as freedom, but as exclusion. If women achieve exclusion from society is that to be seen as a success or a sorrow? In my opinion it is not exclusion but equitable integrating that is the road to true emancipation for women. However, the motif of integration in li ke manner brings with it the idea of compromise, and how can a freedom wrought through with(predicate) compromises be seen as either a complete success or total failure? The issue of what constitutes successful emancipation for women has been explored in two contemporary Australian novels The Childrens Bach4 and Joan Makes History. In this essay I will explore the contradictions and confusions discovered through Athenas and Joans searches for personal freedom, and the mixture of failure and success in the freedom they at long last find when they go home. The Childrens Bach If I hadnt been a feminist I quite probably wouldnt have become a writer5 says Garner, indicating the importance of feminism in her own quest for self indistinguishability and freedom. Her definition of feminism is a simple matter of being intelligently for women and womens freedom to develop as decent human beings6. And although she considers marriage an basis that is not set up with the welfare of women in mind7, she also recognises a powerful urge in people ... to marry8. It stands to ground then, that in her fiction she would explore the possibilities of the tradition of marriage with the view of decision ways it will allow women to develop into decent human beings. With these attitudes mind, it becomes apparent that there is nothing incongruous in Garners heroine Athena searching for freedom, and finding a version of it in her own marital home.