Blurring of the Demarcation between History and Fiction in Peter Carey’sTrue History of the Kelly Gang

Abstract

The present research work is the study of Kelly history about the suffering of the marginalized Australiansfrom new historicist perspective. The research is able to recuperate the colonial history of Ned Kellyby amalgamating history and literature which is the inter-textual output. By creating fictional love story between Ned and Mary and fictional daughter of Ned Kelly,the suppressed history is written by Peter Carey as a revisionist writer. The painful life of the Kellys during colonial period and the inhuman treatment of the colonizers especially English police are clearly examined. The suppressed and unraveled pastcomes into existence which is the best way to renovate the Kelly history in the historical fiction. Peter Carey analyzes the relationship between English colonizer and Australian colonized as the relationship of power. He thinks that the English colonizers created discourses about the colonized like Ned Kelly due to their power politics. So, Carey tries to explore the unexplored terrain within Australian Kelly history ofthelate nineteenth century. This research thematizes the postmodernist and especiallynew historicist concern with the radically indeterminate and unstable nature of textuality and subjectivity.