The Watch Tower
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''The Watch Tower'' (1966) is a novel by Australian author Elizabeth Harrower.Austlit - ''The Watch Tower'' by Elizabeth Harrower
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Plot outline

Laura and Clare Vaizey are sisters living in Sydney in the period around World War II. When their father dies and their class-conscious mother decides to return to live in England the sisters are left to fend for themselves. Laura abandons her medical studies, goes to work in a factory and accepts a marriage proposal from Felix Shaw on the understanding that he will also look after her sister. But Felix is an attention-hungry tyrant with a lack of
empathy Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position. Definitions of empathy encompass a broad range of social, co ...
who sets out to belittle, gaslight and demean the two sisters at every opportunity.


Critical reception

.Reviewing the novel in ''The Washington Post'' on its reissue in 2012 Michael Dirda was unequivocal: "This is a harrowing novel, relentless in its depiction of marital enslavement, spiritual self-destruction and the exploited condition of women in a masculinist society. It reminded me of Zola in its unflinching depiction of two sisters entangled with a moody, violent man, one of them being gradually crushed into subservience, the other struggling desperately to save her own soul. It is a brilliant achievement." Praised by Patrick White in his letters edited by David Marr.


See also

* 1966 in Australian literature


Notes

Text Publishing re-issued the novel in 2012 as part of their Text Classics series. After the novel was re-issued the author was interviewed by
Ramona Koval Ramona Koval (born 1954, Melbourne) is an Australian broadcaster, writer and journalist. Her parents were Yiddish-speaking survivors of The Holocaust who arrived in Melbourne from Poland in 1950. Koval is known for her extended and in-depth in ...
for ''The Monthly''.Elizabeth Harrower in conversation with Ramona Koval (The Monthly Book)
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Watch Tower, The 1966 Australian novels Novels by Elizabeth Harrower Novels set in Sydney