Arcadiana

A Blog about Literature, Culture and the Environment

“Forever changed”: Women, Revelation, and the Apocalypse in Wellington, New Zealand, 1846-1853

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In her classic New Zealand novel The Captive Wife, Fiona Kidman’s character Jacky experiences an Apocalypse within an Apocalypse – that is, a Revelation against a Revelation. Against the backdrop of colonial expansion by British imperial interests, Jacky is placed – first by circumstance, then by desire – “in a liminal space with a Māori chief”, …