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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 5 page essay on this Australian novel, which draws heavily on a review by F.C. Molloy (the novel itself is not cited directly). Using this review, the writer develops a thesis for the novel that explains why, despite there being moments of joy and happiness in this novel, the reader ultimately leaves the characters with a sense of depression. Bibliography lists 1 sources.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khharpis.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
the reader is left with a feeling of deep depression and sympathy for the inhabitants of Surry Hills. This feature goes to the heart of both the novels appeal and
its rejection by critical opinion. In critical surveys of modern Australian fiction, there is occasionally a discrepancy between the responses of scholarly critics and the public response to individual
novelists. The case of Ruth Park and her novel The Harp in the South (1946) is a case-in-point of this feature of Australian literature. During the past forty years, Parks
novel has never been out of print and it has been translated into eleven languages, yet it is dismissed by critics. As H.M. Green appears to have expressed the scholarly
consensus in 1949 when he said that it was "sentimental and lacking in sincerity" (Molloy 316). As this indicates, critics reject Parks underlying romanticism. However, this is only one of
the prevalent features of the novel, as the other is its naturalistic approach in describing the squalor and poverty of Surry Hills (Molloy 317). When the novel was first
published, its graphic realism was a cause of controversy. Many readers were shocked by Parks realism and this issue was discussed at town meetings and by dozens of reviewers and
newspaper correspondents (Molloy 317). One letter writer to a newspaper at the time voiced an opinion that the book was a "wallow in depravity, filth and crime, playing down to
the lowest minded reader" (Malloy 317). Others compared Park to Charles Dickens, predicting that her novel would shock landlords and politicians out of their complacency (Malloy 317). As this indicates,
in Harp, Park describes entrenched poverty and sordid living conditions are the backdrop for her novels focus on family life. Against this backdrop, she pictures the strength of family
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