Dr
Neil Béchervaise
NB
Consulting (Australasia) Pty Ltd
COME
IN SPINNER
Dymphna Cusack & Florence James
Published by Harper Collins
Teaching
notes
Dr Neil E. Béchervaise
Overview
‘Come in Spinner’
is strongly reminiscent of John Steinbeck’s ‘Grapes of
Wrath’. It is an intensely didactic novel covering a complex
and largely under-researched period in Australian social history
from a unique yet significant point of view. As such it is a work
of literature in the style demanded by Miles Franklin [see introduction
p. vii] but rejected by its only obviously reading character, Thelma.
It is equally an essay into the political and historical issues
framing women’s lives through the period. The essays in sociology
are far better integrated than in Steinbeck’s work and they
can be supported with films such as ‘Caddie’, or even
‘Squizzy’.
The significance and
extent of the 1930s depression [which didn’t really end until
the 1950s] in shaping the lives, attitudes and ambitions of the
central characters is brutally obvious and the thematic demands
of the novel are clearly contextualised against this background.
Student pre-reading activities
Working in small groups,
brainstorm what you know about the effect of the depression of the
1930s on people’s attitudes to the government and to the war
that followed. Record your brainstorm as a mind-map for the whole
group to explore and add to.
Research the role of women in society during the second world war
in England, Australia and Russia. Identify the major differences
and suggest why these might have occurred.
Use your mind maps and research findings to discuss ways in which
women’s pre-war experience in Australia would have affected
their attitudes to their roles during the war.
The Story
Guinea, Deb and Val work
for Claire in the Marie Antoinette beauty salon of Sydney’s
luxurious Hotel South Pacific during the latter years of the second
world war. Their lives and loves are linked with the pressures of
the period. Against a background of restricted job mobility, black
marketeering, American troops with too much money, an apparently
idle landed gentry and bitter memories of the depression, the women
strive to achieve their ambitions while remaining true to their
beliefs.
Claire’s high stakes
gambling, the enforced prostitution of Guinea’s sister and
the fatal abortion of a young servicewoman pregnant to a married
soldier focus the novel towards the social and political issues
of the period. The actions of the lesser characters maintain a level
of humour that informs the essential humanity of the novel, lifting
it from the pessimism of the depression years and the immediate
tragedy and dislocation of the war.
‘Come In, Spinner’
draws its readers into a rich and complex world where accepted social
structures have been suspended and the traditional roles and expectations
of women, in particular, are under review.
The characters
Guinea – actually
Margaret – Peg – Malone
Meg’s sister Monnie 17yrs
Major Sherwood Alfrickson – nick-named ‘Alfalfa’
Colonel Byron Maddocks
Claire Jeffries – who would marry Nigel when they have 1000
pounds [probably equivalent to $100,000 in today’s terms]Deb
married to Jack
Child 10 Luen = Araluen
Sister Nolly & Tom
Dallas MacIntyre – doctor, formerly Deb’s science teacher
Angus McFarland with Ian and Olive – and Helen (age23), Virginia
and Lawrence -the landed Gentry
Helen has boyfriend Alec who has injured hand from war wound. –
she ran away from him – socially inept
Blue and Doss – saving for a pub – need 1000 pounds
Bessie – runs the salon shop
Alice – also on staff in the Marie Antoinette beauty salon
Mary Parker – Alice’s sister
Ms D’Arcy-Twyning and Denny (Denise - DDT) – nouveau riche
Mrs born in Manly – affects air of having travelled, etc.
Denny has American fiancée – also British navy fiancée
Commander Derek Ermington
Morgan brothers [presumably related to J.P. Morgan – American
multimillionaire]
Mrs Dalgety (customer - drunk) p25+ and Alistair lover is 20 years
younger than her
Mrs Cavendish touts for the high-rolling baccarat game
Mrs Thelma Molesworth – the hotel
Lance Sharlton - L.F. [Ladies First] – hotel manager
Elvira [Virus] Beauchamp [with a P] - ‘the ancient room –maid
from the sixth floor" p29
Ursula Cronin – salon receptionist
The directors – Veale, Allstone and D’Arcy-Twyning
The prostitutes - Shirley McGovern, Fay, Betty
Grace Smedley - Brothel keeper
Sport - Brothel owner and owner of the racehorse, Stormcloud
Doc – who performs the abortion
Joe – who runs the ‘floating’ gambling school for
richer players
The structure
Sharing the features
of a film script, the novel is compressed into an incredible eight
days during which the stories of the central characters are developed
in parallel and inter-related sequences through a series of shared
and often simultaneous events. The stories are framed against a
background of ambition for apparently unattainable wealth. The wealth
is squandered by those who have it, the landed McFarland family,
the vulgar rich D’Arcy – Twynings and the unselfconsciously
rich American officers on leave, Byron and Sherwood, or it is gambled
for by those who do not.
Opening with a two-up
game in a jammed lift, gambling is the organising activity around
which the women’s lives revolve. Luck is maintained as a guiding
force in the successes and failures of the characters. Claire’s
good luck in winning a fortune turns to bad as her fiancé
Nigel loses it all. Mary Parker is unlucky that her abortion is
botched, Guinea finally makes her own luck in deciding to marry
her childhood sweetheart, Kim.
Section 1 Friday 1 -
97 – Two-up game, Deb and Jack during the depression, Monnie
in Kings Cross, Deb and her sister Nolly, bushfires, Monnie in brothel
Section 2 Saturday 99
- 200 – Helen and Alec, the OBNOs ball, Angus’ proposal
to Deb
Section 3 Sunday 201
- 309 – Reading and Australian books, Thelma dreams of hotel
and marriage, Morgan’s barbeque in hotel room, Kim and Guinea
look for Monnie
Section 4 Monday 311
- 416 – Labour Day holiday – Mary pregnant [p313], Dallas
and abortion, Stormcloud wins, Deb rejected by McFarland women,
romance and death, Monnie arrested
Section 5 Tuesday 417
- 538 – Monnie in prelim court hearing, Mary’s affair,
Mary waits for abortion, PickPockettes at play, hotel director’s
meet, Lofty in the bar, visiting Aunt Annie, Nigel’s ‘honour’
Section 6 Wednesday 539
- 632 - Monnie remanded to Aunt Annie, p561 Dobell and the Archibald
prize, Mary Parker’s abortion [p.565], Sport and Angus meet,
DDT, Women’s Temperance Union, Bessie’s story, Deb’s
depression story – bank closures, Val and love, Helen and Alec
at Luna Park, Claire and Nigel’s big win
Section 7 Thursday 633
- 686 – Ursula spying on the women, Thelma reprimands, Claire
stands her ground, Mary dies, Ursula trapped by her own malice,
Bessie arrested, Nigel loses the fortune, Val and Guinea stand up
for Bessie, Lofty and Billo sort the landlady, friendships tested
Section 8 Friday 687
-711 – Blue wins on lottery ticket, Val bails Bessie from jail,
Claire forgives Nigel, Deb decides to leave Jack for Angus, Kim
wins a duck and proposes, Meg accepts on the toss of a coin
Student activities
Working in small groups
with one ‘day’ per group [8 groups], allocate the reading
of single sections within your group.
Record the main characters
and events in your section.
Share individual findings in your group to develop a plot outline
for your ‘day’.
As a whole group, develop a plot outline for the novel.
Use your experience of creating a group devised plot outline to
identify the major characters and events in the novel.
Before completing your
reading of the novel,
predict the major
themes and record them in your reading journal.
Language
The more subtle differences
between characters, the richness of the humour and the essential
vitality of the period are captured in the language of the characters.
Guinea’s take-off of Thelma Molesworth p.21 establishes the
women’s consciousness of the class differences between them.
Elvira’s consistently dropping the leading ‘h’ from
where it belongs and replacing it where it does not, "Orizontal
hor hotherwise" p. 53, indicates her working class origins
and the cockney influence in earlier Australian accents. Blue is
marked with his frequent use of slang and arguable grammar "I
seen them boys in action up near Markham Valley and I hand it to
them. They’re bobbydazzlers." P.584
The use and misuse of
language provides an educational class distinction between the women
of the beauty salon and the better educated teacher/doctor Dallas
MacIntyre and her friends, the country-bred MacFarland’s and
the lesser educated Blue, Bessie and Elvira. Mrs D’Arcy-Twyning’s
actual origins in outer-suburban Manly are identified in the salon
gossip but they are established as her speech breaks down when she
is angry.
Elvira’s malapropisms
– misuse of words that sounds similar [from Mrs Malaprop in
Sheridan’s ‘The Rivals’] – sound very funny
but they suggest her attempts to use more complex speech than she
is familiar with, "Er kind of goin’s on is anathemia ter
me." P.637 [anathema] and reveal her efforts to speak in a
more refined manner than she has been born to.
Independently of their
various ambitions, the rhyming slang of Blue, Lofty and Billo creates
a linguistic identity for these three as ordinary soldiers with
a shared background and wartime experiences. Lofty and Billo share
a ‘pig’s ear’ [beer] after they have collected Bessie’s
possessions from her room. Blue’s conversation is full of similarly
colourful expressions and Sport’s language matches his need
for more appropriate clothes to meet his rising respectability,
"I got the horse from him all fair and square, didn’t
I?" p. 632
Student activities
Slang and colloquial
language use are common in the speech of all the central characters,
eg Mrs Molesworth’s "turning on the dentures" p.
39 and "Put in the nips for a fiver" p519.
Working in groups,
identify some of the slang terms used by the women and research
their origins. Present your findings as wall posters.
How important are
the patterns of speech in our understanding of the characters
presented in the novel?
‘It’s good
to hit the old steak-and-kid again." Lofty p. 492. In rhyming
slang, ‘steak and kidney’ rhymes with ‘Sydney’.
Identify other examples
of rhyming slang and suggest how its users rely on the familiarity
of their listeners to establish shared meaning.
Nicknames often cleverly
describe the way we feel about people. Elvira is Virus and Denise
D’Arcy-Twyning is DDT.
Establish the origins
of each of the characters’ nicknames and suggest how each
is appropriate to its owner.
Discuss the use of
nicknames in the novel to provide an added element of humour.
Secret languages can
be made up in many ways. One is to change the order of syllables
and add sounds to improve the flow of the words. When Guinea silences
Elvira by shouting "Amscray" [p.663 ], she places the
first syllable last and adds ‘ay’ to the word so ‘amscray’
means ‘scram’. This language is called ‘pig latin’.
Suggest why Guinea’s
use of ‘pig latin’ at this point might silence Elvira
so effectively.
Working in small groups,
discuss your own experience of secret languages, words and expressions
that are shared between small groups to keep secrets from those
outside the group or to establish shared identity with the group.
Claire betrays her education
and her ability to choose language that will stop Elvira’s
gossiping about DDT’s sexual activities when she responds that
she has ,"…never heard that blue blood was any specific
against the spirochete, so it must be just luck" p. 53.
Use your knowledge
of language to list examples of dialogue which establish the relationships
between the women in the Marie Antoinette and their feelings about
the salon clients.
What do these examples
suggest about the education of the salon workers?
Mary Parker pauses in
front of the Shakespeare statue and reflects on his lines from the
Tempest, "We are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little
life is rounded with a sleep." The Tempest [IV,i]
As a whole group,
discuss the way Shakespeare’s speech helps us to understand
Mary’s feelings at this point.
Are these feelings
consistent with the way her character has been developed by the
authors?
Chapter endings often
contain ironic or laconic commentary. As Monnie is delivered into
prostitution, [p.141] "Fay gave a dry little laugh. ‘Sure.
She’ll love Sport."’ . When Thelma and L.F. are panicking
about the hotel room fire, Blue reports "Fourth floor, madam.
The Morgan’s suite. I’ve rung the fire brigade" [p.300].
Later, Mary records, "The cistern gushed … Oh, she was
well rid of that." [p.567].Working in groups, examine each
of the section endings for a single day.
How does the tone
of the final lines reflect the characters’ views of events?
In a full group discussion,
consider how the authors use their section endings to suggest
how we should feel as readers.
The television mini-series
The length and complexity
of ‘Spinner’ makes it a real challenge for teacher and
student alike. It may be an even greater challenge for reluctant
readers – male or female – but teachers selecting the
novel will have considered this possibility. More importantly, the
television mini-series distorts the integrity of the plot, reduces
the depth of characterisation and renders the social issues as incidentals.
In consequence, it becomes less than useful as an alternative representation
of the novel. Teachers seeking to teach the novel through the mini-series
will find the differences in both depth of character and breadth
of social exploration difficult to retrieve.
The collapsing of the
Parker sister’s story creates a tragedy for Claire which works
well on the screen and reduces the number of characters but it reduces
the scope of the novel. The reduction of Nigel’s role as a
struggling actor and as a gambler diminishes the exploration of
underworld gambling, racketeering and black market trading. The
settings, however, are generally unfamiliar and the mini-series
assists with these as it does with fashion and speech.
Student activities
Compare the opening of
the television mini-series with the opening section of the novel.
How does each establish
the difference between the staff and clients at the Hotel Pacific?
The statue of the Bouncing Belle suggests the unrefined origins
of the hotel. Its decoration with a brassiere helps introduce the
underlying good humour of the central characters.
Discuss
Blue’s wife Doss is removed from the mini-series and he is
partnered by Bessie instead.How does this reduce our understanding
of the operation of the South Pacific hotel.
Is the visual information
provided in the mini-series enough to replace the lost description
from the novel?
The mini-series neglects
the relationship between Thelma and L.F. Discuss the value of including
their relationship for our understanding of the ambitions of Australians
during the depression and World War 2. Do the background and ambition
of L.F add significantly to our understanding of the life of the
period?
Imagine that L.F and
Nigel meet with Byron at a hotel management conference after the
war. Develop a two minute dialogue in which they discuss their recollections
of the South Pacific. Rehearse the meeting and play it to the whole
group.
The television mini-series
deletes the Parker girls and expands Claire’s role. How does
this change the way we can think about Claire?
Blue’s two-up game
in the lift is shifted in the mini-series and the role of the racehorse
Stormcloud is almost removed. Suggest how these changes reduce the
potential for showing how gambling affects the characters in the
novel
Novel lengthIn its present
form, ‘Spinner’ is over 200,000 words, about twice the
length of the average novel. Despite its having won the Australian
novel prize in 1948, the original publishers, the ‘Daily Telegraph’,
wanted 50,000 words cut. When this task was completed, their London
publishing affiliate wanted a further 50,000 words cut. The resulting
abridged version published in 1951 was approximately half the size
of this edition.
Student Activities
Working in small editorial
teams, select one ‘day’ from the novel and discuss the
relative importance of each section.
Decide which sections
could be reduced and which could be cut completely.
Working as a whole
group, report the details of each abridged ‘day’ in
order.
Have any deletions
been made which affect understanding of later events?
What effect does your
editing have on the complexity of the novel?
Are there any other
ways you could have edited the novel?
Themes
‘Spinner’ provides
ample opportunity to explore a wide range of themes under any of
three major headings: social change, women and war. Because the
novel is centred on the changing fortunes of the four women in the
beauty salon, it is tempting to suggest that this is a ‘women’s
novel’. Its exploration of war is rather one-sided as the only
service-men are on leave from active service, retired or in reserved
occupations. The novel provides its greatest potential as an account
of social change. The removal of most of the local men from the
Australian social scene establishes a laboratory in which socially
accepted behavioural norms, the law, morality and social constructs
such as marriage and family can be examined under a metaphorical
microscope. The roles of the depression and subsequent levels of
governmental control are foregrounded while changing attitudes to
love, romance and men are critically questioned as they impact on
the lives and deaths of the women in the salon.
Student Activities
Guinea and Kim may be
the only characters in the novel to ‘live happily ever after’
but the authors provide an ominous setting for the proposal. Guinea’s
playful acceptance on the coin toss is overshadowed by the mock
battle of the bombers overhead, p. 364. Consider the juxtaposition
of the happy future with Kim’s potentially sudden and violent
death. Has Meg made the right decision? Should she have taken the
chance to remain ‘Guinea’? Is there a choice for her future?
Angus McFarland makes
an ‘honorable proposal’ to Deb who is married. Claire
believes that Nigel is ‘honourable’ because he won’t
marry her until they have 1000 pounds.
What is ‘honourable’
behaviour?
Make a list of the
major characters and their partners and discuss the range of partnerships
that could be ‘honourable’.
Do your conclusions
match with the authors’ actions? Discuss the reasons for
differences.
Jack moved from the Vineyard
to being a car salesman without consulting Deb. Now he is insisting
on a return to the Vineyard without consulting her. Is this sufficient
reason for her divorcing him? If Deb marries Angus, should she take
Luen to live with her? What alternatives does she have?
"God spare me from
good women" [p518] says Claire to Guinea. Is her response fair
to Mrs Malone.
- Working in small
groups, research the powers of the Children’s Court in today’s
society.
- Do you believe that
the Children’s Court of the time would have allowed Monnie
to go to Aunt Annie.
- The Court official
seems to be very concerned for Monnie’s welfare. Discuss
the credibility of his address to the families.
Symbolism
Gambling
‘Two up’ is
commonly accepted as a specifically Australian game and the authors
use it to quickly and clearly locate the South Pacific hotel as
being in Australia with Blue as a working class Australian. The
symbolic power of the two-up game to establish both location and
class is strengthened when it is contrasted with the baccarat school
that Claire and Nigel use to win their one thousand pounds. The
carefully advertised baccarat game announced by Mrs Cavendish is
highly illegal and its richer players risk jail to play. In contrast,
Two up is not a game of large stakes; it is illegal but not so much
that is treated as anything more than bad taste by the patrons of
the South Pacific.
Off-course gambling on
horse racing is also illegal but gambling at the race track is legal
so the sport symbolises a middle world, respectable to horse owners
such as McFarland and Doc, the wealthy and upper classes. It is
desirable for characters like Sport because it legitimises money
made from previous illegal activity [like his brothel ownership].
The poorer [lower] classes must place their bets through acquaintances
or gamble illegally.
Flowers
From the exotic cut flowers
afforded by the rich American officers to the wild flowers that
Mary Parker recalls as she waits for her abortion, flowers represent
the lives and fortunes of the central characters. Given as gifts,
they offer promises of fabulous futures but they wilt and wither
and their perfume changes until they mark Mary’s lonely death
in Bessie’s room. Wild and unpicked they recall happier, less
complicated lives for Deb and Jack before the war; in large vases
they mark the prosperity of the South Pacific patrons and provide
a bouquet for Claire as she prepares for Nigel and the card game;
as rare orchids they propose wealth and comfort for Guinea in America.
Student Activities
Blue is a disciplined
gambler. When he wins, he gives most of the money to his wife Doss
because they are saving to buy a hotel of their own.
Working in groups, discuss
the gambling motives of each of the characters and suggest who you
feel sympathy with.
What is the outcome
of their gambling? How else might they have acted?
How important is luck
as a theme in the novel?
The big losers in ‘Spinner’
are Jack, Mary, Byron and Claire. Are there any winners?
Select one of these
characters, identify the gamble they take, report the consequences
of their gamble and discuss the impact of their gambling on those
who support them.
Working in small groups,
identify each of the references to flowers for each day.
Establish which characters
and events the reference is associated with.
Suggest what the authors
are using the flowers to represent.
Are the references
associated with particular types of events?
It has been argued
that flowers are usually associated with feminine activity but
their symbolism is more powerful than that in ‘Spinner’.
Do you agree?
Write a response in which you provide specific examples from the
novel to support your view.
Humour
It is common to focus
on the misery of the poor and helpless. This novel, however, celebrates
the lives of its women. They are shown as almost uniformly irrepressible
and it is their recognition of the humour of their situation that
allows them to defuse potentially damaging, even disastrous situations.
Deb’s survival of the depression on the southern beaches provides
Jack with support for his belief in their future; Guinea’s
treatment of Byron and Alfalfa when they arrive together allows
the men to remain friends though rivals; Claire’s good humour
shields the girls from both Ursula and Thelma while Elvira (Virus)
provides comic relief with her black marketeering and petty theft
from the clients – particularly DDT. As a result, it is a novel
of vitality and humour. Blue’s two-up game in the lift, the
caricatures of the rich hotel patrons, the endless look-outs for
Thelma, the spying Ursula and the role of Lofty in reclaiming Bessie’s
belongings from the landlady each helps to snatch humour from the
jaws of tragedy and misery. Played for laughs, ‘Spinner’
provides an insight into the ways people overcome their personal
grief under intense and disapproving public gaze.
Student activities
Focusing on Blue’s
speech throughout the novel, suggest how his optimistic attitude
to life is reflected in the things he talks about.
- Find examples to
show how he changes his speech patterns to speak to different
people.
- Use your study to
discuss the importance of considering audience when we wish to
communicate effectively.
Working in pairs, imagine
you are Kim and Meg. You have just won a duck. Develop dialogue
and action and present the scene where you travel from the spinning
wheel to the park when you tether the duck.
Friends and acquaintances
The breakdown among friends
precipitated by Val’s going to Bessie’s aid after the
botched abortion death of Mary is a deeply disturbing climax to
the novel. It reflects the fragility of the women’s individual
relationships with each other while amplifying their collective
need.
Monnie’s prostitution, Denise Darcy-Twining’s engagements,
the relationship of Helen and Alex, and Mary’s death are side-plays
to the main narrative line but they provide the motivation for exploring
kinship and friendship in detail. Monnie’s escapade introduces
Guinea’s family and Kim’s mother. Guinea’s essential
reality as Peg [Margaret] is illuminated through her need for family
stability. Her decision to help Val when Bessie is arrested and
finally to marry Kim become comprehensible against this background.
She is, at the bottom, a well brought up home girl rather than the
show-case image of the newspaper photograph and the American Colonel.
In contrast, DDT’s shifting engagements humorously highlight
her instability, her wilfulness and her incapacity to form meaningful
relationships. Against this background, Helen McFarland’s burgeoning
love for the war-wounded Alex allows an exploration of the laws
of property inheritance while it explores one of the few relatively
simple relationships in the novel.
Mary Parker’s death
is the tragedy from which all events in the novel climax. Dallas
McIntyre’s principled stand in responding to Deb’s involvement
with Angus MacFarland generates the context in which the fatal abortion
is conducted. Its impact is exaggerated by the fragility of the
Salon women’s relationships with their men and the classed
environment in which they work. Avoiding publicity for the hotel
motivates Thelma and L.F. but it impacts equally on the reputations,
and therefore the ambitions, of Claire, Guinea and Deb. Each could
lose her job, each could lose her man – Deb could lose both
of her men, and her daughter too!
Student activities
The negro soldiers and
sailors in Kings Cross, the aboriginal prostitutes and jewish refugees
[reffos] from Europe are each identified in blatantly racist responses
from otherwise admirable or respectable characters.
Identify examples of
racism in the novel and discuss the ways in which attitudes have
changed in Australia since the novel was written.
Mrs Dalgety’s boyfriend
Alistair is a conscripted soldier, "a Choco – caught in
the draft." [p. 26]
- Use the library to
research the history of conscription in Australia. When was it
first introduced? When was it last used?
- There is a wide range
of views about the justice of conscripting people into an army
for war. Identify what these views might be and write a brochure
in which you argue the rights of your viewpoint.
The death of Mrs Slowman’s
son establishes that both rich and poor die in wars.
- Identify the people
who have been killed in the novel and those who are at risk. How
does each relate to the central characters?
- Discuss the effect
of the authors’ sympathies for soldiers at war on your feelings
for the women in the novel.
Blue’s win with
the lottery ticket means that he and Doss can leave the hotel and
achieve their ambition. Guinea tells Kim she will have to toss a
coin to decide whether she will marry him. Claire seems destined
to unhappiness because of Nigel’s addiction to gambling. Consider
whether the authors are suggesting that life is a game of chance.
What do you feel about this view.
Perspectives on the
novel
The interwoven plots
are so skilfully maintained that they allow us to remain surprised
by the complexity of the women to the very end. Deb’s decision
to leave Jack is probably the hardest decision made in the novel
[It’s complexity is well depicted in the television mini-series].
By comparison, Claire’s return to Nigel appears weak-willed
and Guinea’s coin-tossing with Kim becomes playful banter.
She has shown glimmerings of maturity but her decision to marry
appears more playful than serious. The roar of the planes in mock
combat overhead presage Kim’s future and it is difficult to
accept that Guinea has considered this reality. On the other hand,
she may be only too aware of the fleeting nature of married bliss,
her essential goodness being sufficient motivation to give Kim what
little happiness he may have left before he is killed in action.
"Come in, Spinner".
The authors write extended
passages describing the social patterns behind the lives of the
main characters. Liquor and gaming laws, prostitution and the law
as it is applied to women, poverty and the depression, absentee
landowners, black marketeering and the impact of the American soldiers
on city society are each explored in depth as they affect the lives
and ambitions of the central characters. The result is to make the
novel overly long and, at times, heavily didactic. It has been described
variously as ‘A working class polemic’ and ‘Grapes
of Wrath in skirts’. A useful discussion centres on the question
confronting the authors when they were originally told to remove
50,000 words and then another 50,000 words before the novel was
published. What can be removed without violating the integrity of
the womens’ story?
As the novel suggests,
involvement in World War 2 became a step out of the depression period
for Australian men but it provided no such break for the women who
remained behind. Instead of waiting on their men to find work, they
were pressed into service themselves. The work, as Monnie demonstrates,
was not necessarily fulfilling nor was it optional. In a state of
war, civil liberties were restricted and the class structure was
reinforced in the strict servitude and narrow morality demanded
of the women.
The stark contrast between
the expected behaviour of the employees of the Marie Antointette
and the women they serve, Mrs Dalgetty, Mrs Darcy-Twining and DDT,
is amplified in reactions to Guinea’s invitation to the OBNOs
Ball and in the sexual promiscuity of the Pick Pockettes. Women
are not equal and they are expected to accept their lot. The novel
creates a powerful argument in opposing this viewpoint but ultimately
accedes. Without independent income sources, the women remain essentially
powerless, their only option to marry out. Rejecting idealism, Deb
leaves Jack for her daughter’s sake as much as her own. She
may not have love but she will have stability and the money to buy
whatever she desires. She will never ‘want’ again.
Student Activities
Cusack and James show
Australian society to be highly stratified according to class. They
suggest that it has always been this way. Recent writers depict
an almost classless society. Has Australian society changed in the
half century since the novel was written? How would you describe
Australian society?
‘Heaven preserve
us from good women’ says Claire. The women of the Marie Antoinette
are involved in a range of actions we do not approve of, but ultimately
they are all ‘good’ women. Do you agree?
More than fifty years
later, we are still discussing the level of gambling in Australian
society. Discuss whether we can learn from our past mistakes.
‘Win some, lose
some. Life’s a game. You take your chance.’ What do you
think?
Miles Franklin said that "Without an indigenous literature
people can remain aliens on their own soil. An unsung country does
not fully exist nor enjoy adequate exchange in the inner life".
(intro p. vii)
To what extent do
you feel that novels such ‘Come in Spinner’ can reduce
the level of alienation of Australians from their ‘Australian-ness’.
Working in small groups,
consider the statement: "Florence James appears to believe
that their novel is a celebration of Australian life. It’s
more like a collage of women’s suffering." Collect examples
which both support and refute the statement and use these to consider
what you think of the novel.
Extended resources
Film: Caddie
Squizzy
Play: Dinkum Assorted, Morning Sacrific by Dymphna Cusack
Novel:
Notes at random for discussion
Class distinctions – confusion of class and within class
The 6 o’clock swill – liquor laws
Manpower protected industry
Elvira and wifely duty on Monday night p.54
DDT Denise D’Arcy-Twining – husband in India – foreshadows
Indian independence
57 underwear. Guinea, Mrs Dalgety, blackmarket in, the diaphonous
black nightdress
59
Mrs Slowman’s son killed – the rich also die in war
Guinea on "a soapbox in the domain" – mentioned several
times –The OBNOs Ball and Mrs DDT p. 182
Deb’s visit to north shore - near Pymble
Taxi ride - French’s Forest
Deb and Jack and bushfires
Reminisce first bushfire – near Bateman’s Bay during depression
1934. Romanticised by Nolly. Tom and Jack escape fire in well –
not romantic
Legend surrounding Jack after fire p. 168
Baby’s petrol – petrol rationing. Also food and clothing
rationing
the Vineyard – symbolism [note the visit in the tv miniseries
– useful contextual evidence of why Deb responds the way she
does.
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