Peter Carey, Jack Maggs

Bruce Woodcock (University of Hull)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 9.1.1: Australian Writing and Culture.
Vol. editors: Susan Kossew (Monash University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1997

Places

Australia (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Recommended Reading

Jack Maggs

is Peter Carey's

Wide Sargasso Sea

, a postcolonial retaliation that rewrites a canonical text from the English literary tradition. Jean Rhys's novel gives voice to the silenced marginal figure of the madwoman in the attic in

Jane Eyre

; Carey's allows the transported convict Magwitch from Dickens's

Great Expectations

to take centre stage and tell his story from his own point of view. Whereas Rhys's heroine writes back against the male character who dominated her in Charlotte Brontë's original story, Carey's hero audaciously rewrites his own fictional creator, the novelist himself. As usual Carey crosses genre boundaries to create a distinctive narrative hybrid: historical fiction, which he exploited so vividly in

Oscar and Lucinda

, adopts here the mantle of Australian convict…

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1911 words

Citation: Woodcock, Bruce. "Jack Maggs". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 June 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4368, accessed 23 April 2024.]

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