LIT IS INESCAPABLY CONCERNED WITH THE CONSTRUCTION OF GENDER WHAT IT MEANS TO BE OF ONE
Literature is preoccupied with the construction of gender because of the way it can replicate a dimension of the world to express the issues surrounding the way a society constructs the roles of a specific gender. Harwood concerns herself with replicating her context of 1960s Australia to reveal the way this society has constructed the role of the female gender as; requiring sacrifice and unreasonable enclosure of ones feelings. ... Similarly Suburban Sonnet utilises form, rhythm and imagery to create a resigned tone positioning a reader to realise what it means to be a woman in 1960s Australia. Women are expected to sacrifice their own desires and dreams in order to fulfil the position society has constructed for them- both BS and SS are poems concerned with the loss of ones ability to chase their real dreams and desires. By reproducing a world within the form of a poem Harwood has managed to reveal what is means to be a woman- domestic housewife- in the 1960s Australia enabling one to understand the issues surrounding Women of the 1960s Australia era were stuck in a role that society thought was full of satisfaction and fulfilment, but through Harwood’s “BS” a reader can see the extent to which this is grossly wrong; it is an insight to a part of the female gender usually silenced. ... Instead of the patience that one would expect the demonic imagery suggest the unsatisfying nature of the role of a domestic housewife in Australia in the 1960s.