- Title
- A woman's place: constructing women within true crime narratives
- Creator
- Franks, Rachel
- Relation
- Text: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses Vol. 34,
- Relation
- http://www.textjournal.com.au/speciss/issue34/content.htm
- Publisher
- Australian Association of Writing Programs
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2016
- Description
- Writers do not have to position the female body as a contested space: simultaneously conceived of as a commodity, honoured as a site of self-expression, and visualised as a vehicle for reproduction. This competition of ownership facilitates the commandeering of the female body for a variety of purposes such as the pursuit of financial or political gain. In this way, women who are central to true crime cases – as victims or as perpetrators – can be objectified by writers for the popular press in the rush to tell a story and, in some instances, marginalised, even as their stories are re-imagined. These ideas are explored through two cases that unfolded in Sydney, Australia, in the late-nineteenth century – the gang rape of Mary Jane Hicks and two murders ostensibly committed by Louisa Collins. A brief examination of the contemporary coverage of these cases unpacks how the bodies of both women were conscripted by writers for other purposes – first, to sell papers, and second, to argue for the abolition of the death penalty. This article then looks at the re-telling of these events in Frank C. Johnson’s Famous Detective Stories, which allowed mid-twentieth century true crime writers to re-ignite debates around publishing and punishment found in the original reportage. Almost 130 years after the first of these crimes took place, this article contends offering a feminist framework to review these, and similar, cases demonstrate circulation figures and discussions around the ethics of punishment are not dependent upon the appropriation of the female body.
- Subject
- creative writing; Jack the Ripper; true crime writing; Collins, Louisa; Hicks, Mary Jane
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1344004
- Identifier
- uon:29298
- Identifier
- ISSN:1327-9556
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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