La Trobe

The Green Bell: a memoir of Michael Dransfield

Download (2.89 MB)
thesis
posted on 2023-01-18, 18:11 authored by Paula Keogh
Submission note: A thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the School of Communication, Arts and Critical Enquiry, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe University, Bundoora.

The Green Bell: a memoir of Michael Dransfield is a PhD thesis and a work of creative non-fiction. The memoir is at once a love story, a journey through madness, and an account of the last six months in the life of the poet Michael Dransfield. While its central focus is the period from September 1972 to March 1973, the narrative includes excursions both into the past and the future from within this over-arching time frame. Set in a time of social and political upheaval, The Green Bell probes the psychocultural dimension of the personal crises facing the three main protagonists: Michael Dransfield, Julianne Gilroy, and the author, Paula Keogh. It recounts their experiences as patients in psychiatric wards suffering psychological breakdown while struggling with questions concerning love and death, and how to make sense of a world committed to materialism, war, and environmental destruction. It also engages with issues relating to drugs, sexual politics and feminism as it investigates questions of identity and survival. The Green Bell belongs firmly within the genre of memoir, but it integrates theoretical material and research relating to the themes it addresses, especially those of madness and psychiatry. It reflects on the vagaries of memory and discovers that the past is a play of memory, imagination and the present moment. Finally, this memoir describes the author’s encounters with death, not only as an eighteen and twenty-three-year-old, but also forty years later, as she remembers her friends and tells her story.

History

Center or Department

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. School of Communication, Arts and Critical Enquiry.

Thesis type

  • Ph. D.

Awarding institution

La Trobe University

Year Awarded

2013

Rights Statement

The thesis author retains all proprietary rights (such as copyright and patent rights) over the content of this thesis, and has granted La Trobe University permission to reproduce and communicate this version of the thesis. The author has declared that any third party copyright material contained within the thesis made available here is reproduced and communicated with permission. If you believe that any material has been made available without permission of the copyright owner please contact us with the details.

Data source

arrow migration 2023-01-10 00:15. Ref: latrobe:37942 (9e0739)

Usage metrics

    Open Theses

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Keywords

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC