- Title
- The Taming of the Shrew: discipline and punishment of transgressive young women from the romantics until present day
- Creator
- Vertigan, Meg Louise
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2018
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- The Strong Dress explores experimental medical treatment performed on patients diagnosed with mental disorders up until the early 1980’s. Large doses of drugs put patients into an induced coma as a treatment for psychiatric conditions. Set in 1977, The Strong Dress is told by dual narrators. Kate is a seventeen-year-old HSC student from Sydney’s North Shore. She has dreams of becoming the next Ita Buttrose and being the editor of Cleo. Yet while the 1970’s was the time of free love and peace this movement had not yet hit Kate’s suburban home in Beecroft. Kate’s behaviour leads her parents to seek the advice of a maverick Sydney psychiatrist. Kate is subsequently subjected to untried drug therapy where she is placed in a psychotic state that leaves her confused about what is real. When multiple patient deaths lead her psychiatrist to commit suicide, his colleague attempts to tell the story of his gregarious friend. This unknown narrator attempts to create a tribute to his friend. He describes the psychiatrist’s suave personality and sharp mind and defends his increasingly irrational behaviour, from sleeping with his patients to self-medication. This story makes you question what it means to be sane.
- Subject
- Chelmsford; deep sleep therapy; Doctor Harry Bailey; Gilbert and Gubar; fairytales; tragedy
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1388000
- Identifier
- uon:32710
- Rights
- Copyright 2018 Meg Louise Vertigan, This thesis is currently under temporary embargo and will be available from 31.12.2024
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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