Books Like Jack Maggs by Peter Carey | Suggested Reading

This Study Guide consists of approximately 18 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Jack Maggs.

Books Like Jack Maggs by Peter Carey | Suggested Reading

This Study Guide consists of approximately 18 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Jack Maggs.
This section contains 353 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Jack Maggs Short Guide

Much of Carey's work reflects upon what it means to be Australian, whether in the present day as in Bliss (1981), Illywhacker (1985), and The Tax Inspector (1991), or in the past. Both Illywhacker (the word is Australian slang for a charlatan) and The Tax Inspector are concerned with deception and forgery (interestingly, both texts feature used car salesmen), themes that are important to Carey and his quest for an "authentic" Australian cultural identity that does not simply imitate Britishness. Several of Carey's works, including his collection of short stories The Fat Man in History (1974) and The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith (1994), are set in imaginary societies that are identifiable as Australia. This technique is employed as a means of critiquing both contemporary Australia and, what is for Carey, the nation's troubled relationship with Europe. Set in the imaginary land of Efica, a decolonized country that was formerly governed...

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This section contains 353 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Jack Maggs Short Guide
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Jack Maggs from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.