From Victim To Agent A Postmodern Feminist Reading Of Helen Garner’s Cosmo Cosmolino

Helen Garner is a writer with unique personality, fame and significance in the contemporary Australian history of literature. In 1977, the publication of her first novel Monkey Grip declares the coming of a new feminist writing and marks a turning point in Australian women’s writing. She is seen as an icon of Australian literary feminism and she is disputably one of this century’s most popular writers. Cosmo Cosmolino is a trilogy including:Recording Angel, Avigil and Cosmo Cosmolino. The novel tells a story in which three women’s tough experience from being others to reconstructing self in patriarchal society.The thesis analyzes Cosmo Cosmolino from the perspective of postmodern feminism and explores the three female protagonists’transformation from victim to agent. The three female protagonists emancipate their female subjectivity and female capability in the process from other to self, reconstructing self and pursuing self. They become active, voiced and present from passive, voiceless and absent. This is a process of revolting other, deconstructing other, liberating self and constructing self.First, the thesis mainly analyzes three female protagonists’miserable encounters and inner struggle as others to men, women and themselves in patriarchal society. Then, it analyzes the three female protagonists’awakening in contradiction and their awareness of the significance of changing women’s situation. Finally, it analyzes how the three female protagonists revolt the other, deconstruct the other, liberate the self and construct the self after awakening in the process of successfully breaking free from the patriarchal confinement and finding their real self. The analysis is made to reveal that women’s transformation from other to self is meaningful to liberation of women and helps to create the possibility for harmony between male and female.