Article Title：Sonya Harnett's 'Thursday's Child': Readings
Abstract：
This article comprises two sustained responses to Sonya Hartnett's award-winning novel, Thursday's Child. Both essays explore multiple readings of a complex and intriguing text. Set in the Great Depression in Australia, the novel is seen as at once realistic, mythic, and even fantastic. Judith Armstrong considers Tin, the subject of the title, as a feral child and examines his influence on the other members of his family. As he tunnels through the earth, so does the narrator Harper (Tin's older sister) 'dig' with her pen. Their excavations leave both children forever marked by the bleak and sometimes violent events recorded in the book. David Rudd continues the discussion, finding Freud's exploration of 'the uncanny' and J.M. Barrie's character, Peter Pan, illuminating in his reading of the novel. He also asks how far Harper can be trusted as narrator: can we even be certain that her brother survived a mudslide that occurred early in the story?
Keywords: Sonya Hartnett; Thursday's Child; Australian Depression; feral children; uncanny; unreliable narrator
DOI: 10.1023/B:CLID.0000030224.20569.c2
Source：CHILDRENS LITERATURE IN EDUCATION
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