Some Major Themes in the Novels of Katharine Susannah Prichard

Abstract

A passionate love of the land and of the people who live close to the soil is the source of Katharine Susannah Prichard's writing. Like other writers of her time she was acutely conscious of the need for a national self-awareness, a realization of the unique qualities of Australian life. Her work is based on a belief, rather like that of the American frontier historians, that the things which are typically Australian were created in the course of man's struggle to make himself at home in the country. Thus for her the uniqueness of Australian life emerges from the response to a unique environment, and a study of the environment itself plays a very important role in the interpretation of the life of the people. As a result of this outlook Katharine Prichard has often been given, either directly or by implication, the title of 'Representative Australian Novelist'.