‘A Depressed Amor’: Richardson’s ‘The Bathe: a Grotesque’
Abstract
At a crucial point in 'The Bathe: a grotesque', the opening story of a series which Henry Handel Richardson named 'Growing Pains: sketches of girlhood', the protagonist, a six-year-old girl, is cast in the role of unwilling Eros to two mature women. She is referred to as 'a depressed Amor'. This phrase strikes the keynote to understanding not only the opening story but the series as a whole, which explores, among other things, the cultural channelling of female eroticism, the process whereby a girl is socially conditioned against the love of her own sex.
Please sign in to access this article and the rest of our archive.
Published 1 May 1992 in Volume 15 No. 3. Subjects: Alienation, Clothing, Eroticism, Sexuality & sexual identity, Social change, Women, Writer's craft, Henry Handel Richardson .
Cite as: Franklin, Carol. ‘‘A Depressed Amor’: Richardson’s ‘The Bathe: a Grotesque’.’ Australian Literary Studies, vol. 15, no. 3, 1992, doi: 10.20314/als.c3aaf13431.