Christina Stead's The Man Who Loved Children

Abstract

When Christina Stead writes in memory of her father in her essay "A Waker and Dreamer" (1972) she characteristically tells a story. She offers here a variation of a familiar parable of a man of pristine faith who, as if waking from a charmed slumber sees things somewhat simplictically, as the following strikingly clear-cut comments indicate. "David was an Adam: Australia was his prolific and innocent garden", or again; "He believed he was safe because he was Good; and from the word Good we get the word God, he said and from the word Evil, we invented the Devil"