The Theme of Integration in Thea Astley's Fiction

Abstract

'I work from life, as I know it, as I have known it'. With these words Thea Astley presents herself as a disturbingly honest observer of human behaviour who is keenly aware of the triumphs and failures of ordinary people as they struggle to develop their human potential. She sees a world in which spiritual values are disintegrating, and no moral directives exist for a society beset by the fear of nuclear war and by political, economical, racial and sexist contention. Against this disordered backdrop she creates her own worlds with irony and compassion. Her personal dramas of small-town misfits gain deeper and more universal resonance as she expounds her central theme, which is that of the need for charity and fraternalism in the face of human cruelty.