Barbara Baynton: Woman as ‘The Chosen Vessel’

Abstract

Examines Baynton’s story ‘The Chosen Vessel’ and its critical reception by Phillips and others with regard to the relationship between narrative and gender. ‘Focusing on the place of woman as a sign in the short story and critical commentaries, keeping in mind the question of women’s dissidence’, the author traces ‘the ambiguities of meaning within the original text and its more singular “truth” as represented by the critical tradition’ (25).