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The Magic in the Magic Pudding
Author(s) -
Eipper Chris
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
the australian journal of anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.245
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1757-6547
pISSN - 1035-8811
DOI - 10.1111/j.1835-9310.1999.tb00020.x
Subject(s) - magic (telescope) , fetishism , narrative , allegory , interpretation (philosophy) , appeal , the imaginary , posthumanism , literature , aesthetics , metaphor , sociology , philosophy , art , psychoanalysis , anthropology , psychology , law , linguistics , physics , quantum mechanics , political science
This paper offers a narrative interpretation of Norman Lindsay's remarkable children's story, The Magic Pudding. Entering into the spirit of the tale, it seeks to evoke its magic as well as understand it, advocating an approach to the analysis of narrative that is as celebratory as it is critical. Making reference to James Clifford's discussion of ethnographic allegory, it draws on Michael Taussig's analysis of commodity and other forms of fetishism to argue that the pudding can be construed as a fetish object expressive of concerns and tensions haunting the Australian imaginary. The paper addresses such things as the interplay of class, race and sex in Lindsay's story, equality and exclusion, wealth without work, beards and hats and whatnot. In doing so, it responds to the humour and metaphorical play that is the source of the tale's popular appeal by offering the reader a little of its own—not a whole pudding's worth perhaps but at least enough to whet the appetite.