Ambivalence In Constructing The Woman's Identity

As one genre in world literature, autobiography becomes a focus of literary criticism in recent years. It also provides a space for women to maintain female specificity and construct their identity. While academic circles highly praise the achievements made by contemporary Australian women writers, the overwhelming ambivalence in their identity construction shown in their autobiographies remains undervalued. This thesis aims to explore ambivalence in identity construction in the autobiographies by three Australian women writers. To different degrees, these autobiographies—Wild Card by Dorothy Hewett, Journey with a Stranger by Hilde Knorr, and Road from Coorain, True North, A Woman's Education by Jill Ker Conway—demonstrate typical ambivalence that women writers from different social background have undergone.This thesis is made up of five chapters. Chapter one is the Introduction, where concepts of"ambivalence"and"identity"are clarified, and literature review and format of the thesis are presented. In the following three chapters a critical analysis of"ambivalence"shown in searching for three major identities is conducted, that is, a daughter's identity, a professional identity, and a diasporic identity. The ambivalence shared by Hewett and Conway in constructing a daughter's identity is discussed in the second chapter. From the feminist perspective, chapter three explores women writers'ambivalence in being a writer and requirements for a wife and mother by reading Hewett and Knorr. Based on post-colonial theories of Stuart Hall and Paul Gilroy, Chapter four addresses Conway's ambivalence caught in nationalism and colonialism by studying her trilogy. The conclusion argues that ambivalence in constructing the woman's identity is insurmountable., this thesis suggests that women writers'tension with the mother, their dilemma in being a professional writer confronted with criticism and family chaos, and their identity as a migrant could be better understood.