The sacrifice of honey (fiction) ; The depiction of the media in The shark net, Evil angels and The sacrifice of honey (thesis)

by Lyons, Sara J.

Novel " The Sacrifice of Honey " explores the role of the tabloid media in sensationalising tragedy. It is a literary critique of the symbiotic relationship between an exploitative media and a voyeuristic public. The novel features a woman, Tiberia, who prides herself on her cold rationality. When she witnesses a car crash which results in the death of a mother and a baby, she finds herself becoming increasingly obsessed with media representations of death and tragedy. She loses herself in a fantasy world where she vicariously experiences tragic deaths which have featured in the news and on the Internet. At the same time her own life slowly disintegrates. Exegesis The exegesis examines the depiction of the media in Australian society in three contemporary Australian literary works. In particular, it examines how the writers of these works explore audience participation in the framing and reframing of media representations of tragedy, and the extent to which the audience is complicit in media packaging of death and disaster as a consumer product. The exegesis is a critique of the intersection between the popular imagination in terms of media depictions of violence and the literary imaginings of catastrophe as found in Robert Drewe's memoir, The Shark Net, which deals with the Eric Cooke murders; John Bryson's Evil Angels, which discusses the Azaria Chamberlain case; and my own work which describes one woman's response to the psychological aftermath of a devastating road accident. 5