The recent popularity of mass-market New Zealand historical fiction coincides with the
increasing vocality of particular cultural discourses that resist the influence of revisionist
histories on dominant understandings of national identity. This thesis examines how the
depiction of colonial history in four such novels legitimates and sustains hegemonic
understandings of New Zealand as culturally European. The novels analysed are The
Denniston Rose (2003) by Jenny Pattrick, Tamar (2002) by Deborah Challinor, The Cost
of Courage (2003) by Carol Thomas, and The Love Apple (2005) by Coral Atkinson. The
cultural context in which these books have been produced is situated within a history of
nationalist discourses and Raymond Williams’s theorisation of hegemonic cultural
processes is employed to explain how contemporary national culture continues to rely on
colonial principles that sustain settler cultural dominance. Close analysis of the temporal
and geographical settings of the novels reveals how the portrayal of history in these
novels evades colonial conquest and the Māori cultural presence. A comparison of the
historical and contemporary cultural significance of the spatial settings employed in these
novels – the wilderness, pastoral, and colonial urban spaces – highlights how these
settings tacitly communicate that New Zealand is culturally European. Nevertheless, the
problematic cultural legacies of colonialism still haunt these novels. The way in which
the narratives resolve these issues reveals that hegemonic New Zealand identity is reliant
on a dehistoricised view of settlement and therefore perpetually vulnerable to the
intrusion of Māori memory.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:canterbury.ac.nz/oai:ir.canterbury.ac.nz:10092/1568 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Tyson, A. F. |
| Publisher | University of Canterbury. Department of English |
| Source Sets | University of Canterbury |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic thesis or dissertation, Text |
| Rights | Copyright A. F. Tyson, http://library.canterbury.ac.nz/thesis/etheses_copyright.shtml |
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