Taming the Hobyahs: Adapting and re-visioning a British tale in Australian literature and film.

Abstract

Since its first collection and publication in 1891, the gothic fairy tale ‘The Hobyahs’ has inspired various incarnations in Australian literature and film. This paper explores the trajectory of ‘The Hobyahs’ from its proposed Scottish ori-genesis and adaptation within the context of Victorian (Australian) primary school education, to its revisioning in Australian director Ann Turner’s debut film Celia (1988). In so doing, the paper raises questions about what was misplaced, or lost, as this British tale evolved within Australia’s changing historical contexts and argues that re-visions of the tale made possible through the process of filmic re-contextualisation engaged more authentically with its original gendered undercurrents. Examining the evolution of ‘The Hobyahs’ from print to film also expands upon previous scholarship that has acknowledged the tale’s distinct Australianness and suggests a broader contention regarding the cyclical nature of Australia’s relationship to British fairy-tale traditions: that re-visions have the potential to destabilise earlier twentieth-century Australian adaptations and, in the process, critique the notion of Australian fairy-tale formation itself.