Abstract
Prominent in the final works of Patrick White, the Australian 1973 Nobel Prize laureate, is a vital admission of one’s inevitable dependence on one’s community. Yet how can a writer not only convey this message but also rally his readers towards a recognition of this notion? Moreover, how can a writer reach out of the pages to promote a change of mores in a society generally devoted to the pursuit of glorified, romantic individualism? A close reading of White’s last works points to his use of literary mask-narratives, and particularly mask-characters that embody and reflect social values while being debunked themselves at the same time. By activating these characters, the readers become responsible participants of the outcome of these characters’ actions, and may perhaps view them differently, enough to lead to an eventual alteration of the values they exhibit.
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Notes
As Neumann explains, the individual who has successfully undergone individuation or “secondary personalization,” is one who has managed to assimilate collective psychic contents, which were already ingrained in his “psychic constitution,” and turn them into an integral part of his own personal psychic materials (Neumann: 1993, pp. 336–339).
On his deathbed, one of White’s last protagonists attests that “as the world darkens, the evil in me is dying. I understand. Along with the prisoners, sufferers, survivors. It is no longer I it is we. It is we who hold the secret of existence we who control the world WE.” Patrick White, The Age of Wart (1988, p. 59).
White based his play on the Rector of Stiffkey, the Reverend Harold Davidson. Charged by the Church authorities of immoral conduct with women, he was found guilty and defrocked. Davidson spent the rest of his life performing stunts, until a lion in a Skegness amusement park killed him in 1937. See: Patrick Barkham, The Guardian, “Defrocked rector was “unfairly vilified”,” 18th September 2004. Retrieved 7th March 2022 from https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/sep/18/patrickbarkham.
One recalls that the fringe of leaves that White uses for the novel’s title is important since it enables Ellen to hold onto her wedding ring while living with the native inhabitants. She ties the ring to one of the strands of the leaves she is allowed to wear around her waist, careful to hide its golden glitter, for fear of being robbed. This ring retains her spirit throughout her travails, representing her only connection to her formative society. She loses it symbolically, moments before reaching a white settlement after a harsh, long escape. She will have to renegotiate her connection to white society, something she can only hope to do if she embraces her experiences from her life with the natives.
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Melcer-Padon, N. Patrick White and the agency of literary masks. Neohelicon 49, 801–818 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-022-00630-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-022-00630-4