Australian Context

You might be thinking that the typical Australian man would be a tall, sunburnt Caucasian man sitting out in the outback on a hot summers afternoon kicking his feet up waiting for the ‘stags on the barbie’ to finish cooking. But not many people realise that the majority of Australians live in urban areas.  Saving Francesca explores a wide variety of Australian references in the text.

This novel is an insight of the Australian catholic school system.  Francesca, the main protagonist attends  St. Sebastian’s which is based on a school in the city of Sydney called St. Mary’s Cathedral College. The school is a denominational school which is school that are set up by  Church communities as opposed to  state schools.

Colloquial language depicts how Australians communicate with each other. Australians like in the novel, talk very casual when conversing which shows how free and comfortable they are with other people.

Australian is a multicultural society which is very much shown in the novel through the symbolism of the character’s last name, it shows that Australia is not just a Caucasian society. For example ‘Siobhan’ is Irish as it derives from the Irish form for Jehanne. Another example is Justine’s last name ‘Kalinsky’ which is polish. The location of Leichardt is significant in the novel as it is a place where Francesca (who is of Italian heritage) and other Italians congregate.