Unreal Houses

Feminine Writing of Murasaki Shikibu and in The Tale of Genji

“…As an aristocratic woman, her disloyalty will hurt her reputation. As far as I am concerned, it is the inequality between men and women that leads to the endless nightmares of Fujitsubo, since "noble men are privileged to maintain extramarital relationships with other women", while women are not [2].…”

“…Murasaki Shikibu is a celebrated court lady author in Heian Japan, known for The Tale of Genji, a story that provides "a complex picture of male-female relationships from a woman's perspective" [1]. In her period, "noblemen and emperors are privileged to keep in touch with multiple women after marriage", a phenomenon also reflected in her work [2]. Still, a few female characters, such as Lady Akashi and Hanachirusato, can live their comfortable and superior lives in such an environment.This echoes Helené Cixous's "to write, then her body will be heard", for both Murasaki and the roles she created have their feminine consciousness [3].…”

Italy and Queensland

“…17 Sarra writes of a very happy upbringing in a big family in Bundaberg, thanks to his mother, Norma Broom, a Gurang Gurang and Taribelang woman, and his father, Pantaleone Sarra, from Miglianico in Chieti province (Abruzzo): 'While we may not have been financially loaded, we certainly were incredibly wealthy when it came to spiritual and familial wellbeing.' 18 He recalls the ways his mother raised them all to be proud and strong against the racism to which they were subjected as an Aboriginal family, as well as his observations, as a child, of his father's Italian-migrant condition. On one hand, his father had a solid connection with Italian mates, with whom he had weekly get-togethers, and on the other, his 'beautiful lyrical name' was 'bastardised by those who could not pronounce it' to Peter; 19 the types of work he could do were limited by his lack of written English; and he worked extremely hard, especially when he cut cane ('the old-fashioned, hard way, with the cane knife').…”

“…18 He recalls the ways his mother raised them all to be proud and strong against the racism to which they were subjected as an Aboriginal family, as well as his observations, as a child, of his father's Italian-migrant condition. On one hand, his father had a solid connection with Italian mates, with whom he had weekly get-togethers, and on the other, his 'beautiful lyrical name' was 'bastardised by those who could not pronounce it' to Peter; 19 the types of work he could do were limited by his lack of written English; and he worked extremely hard, especially when he cut cane ('the old-fashioned, hard way, with the cane knife'). 20 Sarra appreciates that times must have been even tougher for his father in Italy when he decided to leave in the early 1950s.…”

“…On one hand, his father had a solid connection with Italian mates, with whom he had weekly get-togethers, and on the other, his 'beautiful lyrical name' was 'bastardised by those who could not pronounce it' to Peter; 19 the types of work he could do were limited by his lack of written English; and he worked extremely hard, especially when he cut cane ('the old-fashioned, hard way, with the cane knife'). 20 Sarra appreciates that times must have been even tougher for his father in Italy when he decided to leave in the early 1950s. 21 One moving part of the book is Sarra's description of meeting his father's family in Italy as an adult, being shown around the sites of his father's upbringing, and his feeling of discovering his Italian identity.…”