"Fine in the morning": the life writing of Alice McKenzie

Abstract

This thesis is a discussion of Alice McKenzie's (1873-1963) life and writing. Alice McKenzie grew up in the colonial world of the West Coast during the end of the nineteenth century. Her written work spans the end of the nineteenth to the beginning of the twentieth centuries, and much of this writing is grounded in her experience of pioneer life. Alice McKenzie's writing includes: an unpublished diary and a published collection of poems; a selection of magazine submissions; and a memoir entitled Pioneers of Martins Bay: The Most Remote Settlement in New Zealand. In this thesis I use the terms "life writing" and "personal narrative" to define and discuss a variety of writing practices, all of which can be defined as autobiographical. I suggest that Alice's writing offers examples of life writing which do not necessarily conform to feminist models for criticising and theorising women's life writing practice. Many of these feminist models rely upon notions of gender as an a priori category; a dichotomous relationship between "public" and "private" worlds; and an emphasis upon gendered subjectivity. In contrast, Alice's writing is grounded in the oral history of West Southland, the pioneer experience of the landscape, and the cultural construction of discourse. This thesis seeks to locate her writing within these particular contexts. An emphasis on cultural transmission, the uses of story, and perception of landscape are intended to illustrate the ways in which life writing can be critically read as a socially and culturally constructed practice.