CHAPTER - 1

Introduction

"Then God said, "Let there be light"

and there was light".

Genesis, 1:3

T.S.Eliot, in his famous article on James Joyce's Ulysses, wrote in 1923

that a novelist has to give shape and significance to the immense panorama of

futility and anarchy that lies in contemporary life. An artist, particularly a

novelist, should have an intellectual theory of his own, defining the

complexities of life in order to establish his role in such a scheme of events.

AJan Trachtenberg, in his article "Intellectual Background" states that,

the homelessness, the alienation, of the artist is a basic

premise of modernism, of that dominating movement in art

and thought which, by celebrating aesthetic and intellectual

dissent, unbounded innovation and experiment, indeed often

sheer difficulty and opacity, raised the artist's alienation into

a first condition of his being an artist at all. (Harvard Guide

to Contemporary American Writing p.2).

The artist is a rebel who does not conform to the set traditions that prevail

over the years. He is a dissenting voice, accepting the role of a critic, of social,

economic, cultural and moral order. His role entails an effort to grasp the

society in its entirety, to seek a critical point of view and to resist pressures to

abandon any ideological perspectives. The dissenters, in turn, cling to an ideal

of intellectual opposition provoking them to extremities of experiment and

expression in search of appropriate style and forms.

The post-war period, particularly the sixties has generated an ambitious

spirit of experiment in all forms of writing, particularly poetry, drama and

novel. The Argentinian writer Jorge Louis Borges has wielded considerable

influence over the philosophical outlook of America and Europe. The split in

the soul of modern man, as visualized and projected by Des Cartes, has

prompted the novelists to analyse the psychic problems underlying the

activities of human beings. "For what his allegiance is, is what he is writing

about", so says Walker Percy, the American novelist, in his essay, "A Novel

About the End of the World". It is a clear statement about the allegiance of a

novelist-allegiance to the social, political, the moral and the religious

dimensions of human life. The inclinations, the dispositions and the leanings

of a novelist find expressions in his literary output. Patrick W h i t e believes

that a novelist should have a clear vision of the type of role he plays apart

from knowing thoroughly a well-defined notion of his profession. To him like

D.H. Lawrence, novel matters more than other forms of writing because "the

novel is the one bright book of life" and the novelist is "superior to the saint,

the scientist, the philosopher and the poet. (20th Century Literary

Criticism p. 133). A novelist should see something other people do not see or

atleast do not pay much attention to. He should not be an alien in a hostile

society. He should be "a man speaking to men", a wounded man having a

better view of the battle than those still fighting. Patrick W h i t e believes that a

novelist should atleast be a 'quasi-prophet', disagreeing with his fellow country

men, shocking them with his moralistic outbursts about the end of the world,

that is the passing of one order and the beginning of another. He shares the

view of Walker Percy that a novelist, "is like the canary that coal miners used

to take down into the shaft to test the air. W h e n the canary gets unhappy,

utters plaintive cries and collapses and it may be time for the miners to surface

and think things over (Walker Percy, The Message in the Bottle, p. 101).

Therefore it should be the ultimate concern of the novelist to warn the present

generation of the imminent catastrophe it has to face unless corrective

measures are taken. The "either/or" situation is too serious because "the
psychical forces presently released in the post modern consciousness open

unlimited possibilities for both destruction and liberation, for an absolute

loneliness or a rediscovery of community and reconciliation" (MB p.l 12).

As a result of this peculiar situation, the relevance of a novelist in the

modern society becomes all the more compelling since like the canary he gives

precautionary cries to avert the impending disaster. This prophetic role or the

moralistic pre-occupation makes the novelist take up the vantage position to

fight against the distracting powers of decadence and destruction. To cope

with this situation the novelist "calls on every ounce of cunning, craft and

guile he can muster from the darker regions of his soul. The fictional use of

violence, shock, comedy, insult, the bizarre are the every day tools of his

trade" (MB p.l 18).

The ultimate concern of a novelist should be the nature of man and the

nature of reality. Man is seen as a "Homo-viator", the sovereign wayfarer, a

pilgrim, the man on the exit, a stranger in a strange land where the sign posts

are enigmatic because "the ways [are] deep and the weather sharp/The very

dead of Winter" (T.S. Eliot,"Journey of the Magi',11.5-6). This concern for

man's fundamental predicament is the dominant strain in the novels of

Patrick White. But a direct, overt and straight-forward tirade against the sins

of the society is not effective as Patrick W h i t e believes that the traditional

religious terminology has become ineffective and obsolete. So the technique

of "indirect communication" on the moral plane is what Patrick White strives

for in his novels. In this connection the words of the Duke Senior referring to

the 'Wise Fool" Touchstone become relevant. "He uses his folly like a stallcing

horse, and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit". (As y o u Like It,

Act V Scene IV). This Touchstone-type role fits Patrick W h i t e well to spit his

venom at the modern concept of scientific humanism and professional

consumerism. He speaks like an 'apostle with authority' against the type of

sensuous pleasures enjoyed by man in the modern society. This is the

background that helped the emergence of Patrick W h i t e as a major literary

force in the twentieth century fiction.

Australia was brought to the light of the literary world by the wonderful

creations of Patrick White, the Nobel Laureate in 1973. The recognition

accorded to Australia as a literary power seems to be sudden, but really it is

due to the cumulative effect of the spade work carried out by Australian

writers in general, and Patrick White in particular. He finds "Australia' as a

living character exhibiting all the contradictions and diversities that we

encounter in actual life. For him Australia is only a ploy to probe deep into

human psyche in order to fishout the lighter as well as the darker sides of

human nature. He acloiowledges the metaphor of life as a pilgrimage to

encounter the true self. His interest is wide and varied. The aesthetic arts of

music and painting, the sensuousness of Nature replete with all shades of

emotions and feelings, the use of symbolic language to bring out the hidden

meaning of life, are the various attractions one finds in his novels. His interest

in the local scene is an expression of the desire to achieve the universal

through the particular. In this connection the words of Brian Kjernan become

relevant:

In terms of century-old debate in his own country

Patrick W h i t e can be seen as both a "local' writer

critically engaged with his society, and a "universal"

writer, whose concerns can be discussed as though

unbounded by place and time, and whose affiliations

are more with the European rather than any

distinctive Australian literary tradition" (Brian,

Kiernan, p . l )
His love for the universal through the local is considered to be an imaginative

search for the transcendent values in a secular society.

W h i t e is not contented with the presentation of the Australian society

as he sees it, instead, he goes deeper and deeper to unearth the common

heritage of all humanity, highlighting its strength and weakness, thoughts and

emotions, the cross-currents of psychic order and disorder. The tension, the

restlessness and uneasiness presented in his novels are due to the dichotomy

between the higher perceptions his characters seek and the mundane reality

they encounter in actual life. There are conflicting opinions about Patrick

White's role as a novelist. Whether he is traditionally a simple writer

affirming a religious or mystic view of life or whether he is a modern writer

seeking the transcendent possibilities underlying human actions, is not yet

settled by critics as his novels yield a wide variety of interpretations. A

genuine writer cannot be pigeon-holed into one particular category since his

concern is not one aspect of life but the entire bee-hive of human sympathies.

According to Ingmar "his characters fascinate [us] as a result of the overtones

one discovers in them. He makes it credible that many people behind their

social wall are endowed with a life-enriching consciousness and a person who

shares in it...is rewarded with something of vital importance" (Ingmar, p. 1 22).

 A brief biographical study enables us to know the formative influences

which caused the flowering of his genius. Patrick Martindale W h i t e was born

on 28 May 1912 in London when his parents had undertaken an extended

honeymoon tour covering nearly two years. He spent his early childhood in

the inner Harbourside suburb of Rushentters Bay in Sydney. After a few

years, he was taken to England and enrolled at Cheltanham College in

Gloucestershire. Thelma Herring and G.A.Wilkes in "A Conversation with

Patrick W h i t e " quote his words describing his state of mind in England.

My school years were partly dreary. I hated

Cheltenham, its regimentation. But there was

always the possibility of going to the theatre in

London during the holidays (Southerly p. 133).

For him London was only a landscape for fun and frolic and Australia was the

land of his vision, since his serious literary career began only when he returned

to Australia, after his studies. He has compared this stage of his life to that of

the prodigal son, who returned to himself, to his father and the ancestral

home after spending days and nights in far away places. This return to the

place of one's childhood days is replete with metaphysical overtones implying

that all journeys will end in their beginnings. The moral overtone that runs

through all his novels is expressed in many ways, chiefly through the 'journey

motif and it has become a major theme in his novels.

The Second World War interrupted White's literary career since he

was to join the Royal Air Force in 1941. He was posted in the Middle East as

an intelligence officer. This enabled him to have direct encounter with the

vast Egyptian deserts, which changed his view of life. He later made use of all

these "open air" experiences in his novels, particularly in Voss (1957). W h i t e

affirms that "the western deserts brought back memories of Australia"

(Kiernanp.4). Referring to his experiences. W h i t e says:-

AU through the war in the Middle East there persisted a

longing to return to the scenes of childhood, which is after all,

the purest well from which the creative artist draws.

Aggravated further by the terrible nostalgia of the desert

landscapes, this desire was almost quenched by the year I spent

stationed in Greece, where perfection presents itself on

everyhand, not only the perfection of antiquity, but that of

nature, and the warmth of human relationships expressed in

daily living "(The Prodigal Son", p.37).

 10

It is only after returning to his native land, he produced serious literary works,

beginning from Happy Valley to the last novel Memoirs of M a n y in One.

All these novels are brought together by the moral fibre running through

them.

Before exploring White's fictional landscape one has to get acquainted

with his pet theory of 'refinement through ordeal'. Patrick W h i t e has

understood that the conventional, religious, social and scientific pieties are

inadequate to find solutions to the problems of everyday life. Malthew Arnold

believed that the role of religion should be taken up by poetry. W h i t e goes

one step further to mean that poetry also has failed and it is the onerous

responsibility of the novelists to offer solution covertly. For W h i t e the inner

world of man, his mind and all that are born within his thinking system form

the core of reality. It is the search of the protagonists for a higher order that

exists beyond the boundary of social relationship. A man cannot continue to

exist in the state of meaninglessness for long and he has to do "something" to

come out of the predicament. The sovereignty of human life is questioned at

its very base by the sense of alienation. Patrick W h i t e of Australia, Walker

Percy of America and Muriel Spark of England share this view that man is

sunk in to every dayness by routine and conventional modes of existence.

 11

According to Percy, the numbness of everydayness which causes a devitalized

existence should be overcome by the search for a heightened reality and

personal identity. Percy through the mouth of Binx Boiling, the protagonist of

his novel "The M o v i e g o e r (1961) expresses the idea that "the search is what

any one should undertake if he were not sunk in everydayness of his own life"

(The M o v i e g o e r p. 1 8).

The same view is expressed by Muriel Spark, the British novelist.

These three great novelists of the three different continents come together to

expose the meaninglessness of modern way of living. The modern man

considers life as something imposed on him, much against his will. Heidgger's

view of human life as a "thrownness in to being" emphasizes this particular

idea that man is incapable of coming out of his self as life itself is not of his

choice. The only reality that appears meaningful to him is "his own self". The

reason for this disintegration of human personality is mainly due to the

disappearance of the distinction between abstract and concrete personality.

Lukacs says "if man's inwardness is identified with an abstract subjectivity,

human personality must necessarily disintegrate," (p.479). The excessive

dependence of this abstraction is the very root cause of modern man's

distraction and alienation. According to Walker Percy "abstraction is the

 12

absorption of the concrete personality in to its theoretical shadow through the

objectification of the self". Muriel spark is of the opinion that the 'soul', the

^self and the ^spirit' are treated now on par with objects of lesser values and

significance resulting in a great fall, the fall of the sublime to the ludicrous.

The human personality almost becomes "hollow" with an impressive exterior

but with a perishable interior. T.S.Eliot's description of the hollowmen is the

right reminiscence of human personality. He presents it as "shape without

form, shade without colour/paralysed force, gesture without motion." This

ludicrous fall is made more apparent in the contrasting lines of Marvel and

Eliot. Marvel! in his poem "To His Coy Mistress" points out what lies before

and after an integrated personality.

But at my back I always hear

Time's winged chariot hurrying near.

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

This is contrasted with Eliot's lines in "The Waste Land".

But at my back in a cold blast I hear

The rattle of the bones, and Hthe chuckle

Spread from ear to ear".

 13

Patrick W h i t e also contributes to this sense of meaninglessness. He compares

human life to the "forbidden tree with the serpent on it". Man allows himself

to be ridden by Satan and his evil plans. Patrick White's protagonists are

subjected to intense trials, physical, mental and spiritual. They gain enough

strength to survive the ordeals in order to gain the momentum that carries

them forward. The famous statement of Coleridge regarding the progress of

poetry, "like the motion of a serpent which the Egyptians made the emblem of

intellectual power; or like the path of sound through the air, at every step he

pauses and half recedes, and from the retrogressive movement collects the

force which again carries him onward," (S.T.Coleridge, B i o g r a p h i a Literaria,

p. 195), is what Patrick W h i t e underscores in his novels.

A brief survey of the novels of Patrick W h i t e is necessary to note that

the main thread of moral responsibility on the part of the novelist runs

through all of them. Patrick W h i t e has projected the landscape of Australia to

the literary world by setting all his novels, except The Living and the D e a d ,

which is set in England, in Australia. William Faulkner's mythical country

"Yoknapatawpha" and R.K. Narayan's "Malgudi" are representations of

certain geographical areas dearer to them. But Patrick white has not resorted

to the christening of Australia in any other terms. He presents the Australian

 14

topography, culture and tradition as they are without changing them to the

fictional sphere. Patrick W h i t e exposes the life and manners of the

contemporary life through the landscape of Australia as it serves him as more

than a literary convenience, a place known and used as it is related to those

moral and social problems that most urgently beset him and the locale and

theme seem to be inseparable. He refuses to point the finger of accusation at

the life led by the people as he believes in indirect communication of moral

principles through, "a just and lively representation of human nature",

capturing the "zeit-geist", and leaves the conclusion to the reading public. He

has presented himself as an observer, a reporter and not an interpreter of the

social values, and theories of morality, though he has his own pet theories and

personal values. W h i t e is never one-sided in his presentation of his themes.

So, the virtues, vices, the good and the evil find equal place in his novels. The

enlightened reader easily grasps the truth as he throws indirect light on his

own persistent and yet cautiously qualified affirmation. W h i t e presents the

general human problem through a careful portrayal of the life in Australia.

The landscape becomes the subject of his writing and it represents a bigger

version of the different types of life led by the Australians during the

twentieth century. The Australian topography offers Patrick W h i t e a tool for

 15

profound analysis of the human life and its moral condition, for which he is

justly loiown and admired. In range of style and structure, in the power of

analysis of character, and in the sheer brilliance and versatility of literary

accomplishment, his novels are not equalled anywhere in modern Australian

literature. But this does not mean that Patrick White's vision of life is partial

or blurred. It only asserts that all that he could know, see, experience, read

and hear about the life in Australia found a substantia! representation in his

novels. Like most of the novelists of the time, Patrick W h i t e presents the

general attitude of the time, a time of freedom from the rigidity of the society.

Irving Howe, in "A Collection of Critical Essays" says that

If it is the duty of a novelist, to create characters

only with their role of a novelist in mind, he should

create types as in the morality plays. But a novelist,

like a play-wright, is one who is to represent life in

general as lived in society at a particular point in

time (p.283).

The first two novels Happy Valley and The Living and the Dead are

clear indicators of Patrick White's orientations. They are the hints of his pre-
 16

occupations with the moral vision of life. These two novels present the crisis

in the life of man, his isolation and his search for meaning and identity. The

setting of the first novel is the rural Australia and the second novel is set in

London. In the epigraph to Happy Valley Patrick W h i t e states that,

it is impossible to do away with the law of suffering,

which is the one indispensable condition of our being ...

The purer the suffering, the greater is the progress

(Epigraph).

But suffering without humility and humanity will not assure of the solution,

the spiritual progress. Oliver Halliday, the protagonist who is a doctor by

profession, decides to live in Happy Valley with his family. He is very much

attracted by the prefix "happy", but later he realises that it is not a place of

happiness, but of anguish and anxiety and it is like the unreal city of Waste

Land "removing itself into a world of allegory, of which the dominating motif

was pain" (HV p.77). His married life does not give him happiness as his

relationship with his wife and children does not help him to circumvent the

sense of alienation gnawing at his soul. For a brief period of time he finds

signs of progress when he establishes a new kind of affinity with the music
 17

teacher, Alys Browne. At this point of time Oliver feels that he has achieved

the heightened reality and the level of his consciousness is lifted up to a

considerable extent. She seems to him a guide, a guardian and above all an

intellectual bliss as in the case of Wordsworth with his sister Dorothy. He

acknowledges openly that the relationship is

a sort of intellectual quality that I didn't get any where

else Like a lot of other illusions I've had for years, I've

wanted something else. That was all wanted. I don't

think many of us do. Except very occasionally by a sort of

intuitional flash. Sometimes it's a physical or material

solution [and] sometimes it's spiritual, some times it's

both (HV.pp. 158-59).

But he has not achieved self-realization, though he suffers. Suffering is not a

guarantee for salvation. Suffering should make one meek, humble and

humane. He should experience the suffering in the landscape of his mind as it

is with Voss. This Idnd of ordeal alone will lead to refinement and spiritual

enlightenment. Sharing of consciousness leads to a blissful experience. Oliver

returns to his wife but this re-union, though after much suffering, has not
 18

effected the cause of salvation. Oliver's son, the unhappy school boy, also tries

to wriggle out of his everydayness by forming a relationship with the half-caste

Margaret Quong. He develops a sort of companionship towards her, as he

feels that she is a sufferer like him. But the boy also leaves her when the

family moves out of the happy valley, reminding one of the idea that some

relationships are temporary like the bubbles and they do not take one forward

to the level of discovery or recovery. Meaningful and illuminating

relationships can alone produce the desired results.

Patrick White's second novel also moves along the same line - the line

of suffering. The protagonist Elyot Standish seems to be a citizen of the

Waste Land, the land of the living dead. He wants to escape from such a

dispensation and he undergoes a tremendous conflict. He wants to flee from

the city of Destruction to the city of Salvation, as Christian wanted. But he

fails to win over " a state of alienation towards an experience of completeness

in which they find their meaning and purpose as part of a larger, more intense,

and intensifying divine whole", (Brady, "Difficult God", pp. 72-73). But he

has not grasped with the ultimate reality and his sense of alienation grows.

He is in the aesthetic mode of existence, not parttaking or taking part in the

drama of life. Like an observer anchored to a place he views the entire scene.
 19

"He had no part in anything. It frightened him a little. He could feel himself

tremble... It began to occupy him more and more, his not being part of

anything" (LD, pp.1 10-1 I I ) . The same spectator-like attitude is developed

when he stands a mute witness to the bus accident when the bus ran over a

drunken man. At the time of the accident "the whole neighbourhood moved,

except his feet. He was anchored where he stood. He was the audience to a

piece of a distant pantomime" (LD p. 10). Elyot could not make a meaningful

association with his sister Eden, when she decided to go to Spain in order to

participate in the civil war. He understands that he has the right and the

power to dissuade her from going away, but some sort of numbness has set in

and he does not do anything, either good or bad - to stop her. In his case he

failed to extend his mind to his sister and also to the dead drunken man and

he stands marooned in the middle of the sea of life.

Elyot does not take any one into his mind and heart lovingly and

seriously. Therefore his relationships w^ith women also end in despair. In

Germany he had an affair with Hildegard. He had an intimate relationship

with his Jewish mistress Muriel. But these contacts could not deliver him out

of his alienation. He even feels confused and awe-struck when he thinks of his

affairs with women. He considers his relationship with Muriel only as "the
 20

last flicker of boredom experienced by two people that habit kept united"

(LD p.277). His association with the third woman Connie Tiarks also ended

in failure. He takes asylum in the world of the dead, that of books. He wants

to run his life on one rail leaving out the other, that is, he wants to be labelled

as an intellectual being free from emotional entanglements. Bjorksten

presents Elyot as "the intellectual who does not make use of his opportunities

to become alive, and for whom there is no rooted existence in the future or in

his own mental make-up. His security is the past, a world of the dead",

(p.33). But this kind of insulated life of avoidance of reality is broken by

Elyot when he discovers that his sister Eden's travel to Spain to participate in

war after the death of her lover when she was convinced of "the rightness of

this". Therefore he understands that there should be

Some other way, not so very different perhaps, the means

different, if not the end. You were aware of the same end.

The arch enemies were the stultifying, the living dead.

The living chose to oppose these, either in Eden's way, by

the protest of self-destruction, or by what... if not an

intenser form of living (LD p.354).

 21

B u t still t h e r e is d o u b t t o m a i n t a i n t h a t Eiyot has a c h i e v e d self-realization

completely. H e u n d e r s t o o d t h a t ' t h e r e w a s s o m e t h i n g in E d e n ' s reach t h a t

was b e y o n d his o w n " ( L D p . 2 5 0 ) .

The next novel, which Patrick White has published, is The Aunt's Story after a

gap of seven years, in 1948. This novel is the starting point of Patrick White's mature

vision of life, the moral vision that teaches the world that the ultimate solution lies in

ultimate suffering, the kind of suffering that is capable to chastise and chasten the erring

soul. The protagonist undergoes various ordeals, physical and mental and ultimately

destroys herself in order to create herself This is the story of Theodora Goodman, a

woman who is neither here nor there and as such she is in a predicament. She is not a

girl or a boy, but she has both the qualities and she knows that she cannot be both but

only one. She walks with a long-legged masculine stride "dry, leathery and yellow"

(p. 12). A black moustache completes her crisis. "She should have been a boy, they said

.... Life was divided, rather, in to the tender moments and the cruel" (p.32). She cannot

easily identify herself with the personages that surrounded her except her father. Her

attachment to her father has evoked cruel responses from her mother, and for which the

mother hates her more and loves her sister Fanny. And her father Mr. Goodman had his

own pre-occupations and he did not try to understand her. She was secretly undergoing

a spiritual crisis without much external symptoms. She felt that "she was oppressed by a

weight of sadness that nobody would lift, because nobody would ever know that she was

shouldering it. Least of all [her] father, who was thick and mysterious as a tree, but also
 22

hollow..." (pp.25-26). Only through a close intimacy of spiritual stature can the wall of

alienation be penetrated. But nobody ever tries, nor shows real concern towards her.

Her two suitors Frank Parrot and Huntly Clarkson also failed to tackle with her

alienation and as such their affair with her does not fructify. So, she broke her

relationship with them as she has the desire to create through crises.

The death of her father was a great blow and the pleasant experiences of her

childhood collapsed. Meroe, the geographical area of her childhood days also lost its

magic and it looked ordinary after the death of her father. The visionary gleam is over

and she tries to find answer for the question "where is it now, the glory and the dream".

The only one who made an attempt to understand her is her school mistress. She utters

these words to her:-

P r o b a b l y y o u vWll never m a r r y . . . y o u will n o t say the

t h i n g s t h e y w a n t t o hear, flattering their vanity and their

strength.... You will see clearly, beyond the

b o n e . . . . B e c a u s e y o u are h o n e s t , a n d because you are

b a r r e n , y o u will be b o t h h o n o u r e d a n d d e s p i s e d . . . . But

t h e r e will b e m o m e n t s of p a s s i n g affection, t h r o u g h w h i c h

t h e o p a q u e w o r l d will b e c o m e t r a n s p a r e n t . . . . ( p . 6 3 ) .
 23

Theodora's mother was harsh and violent towards her. Her mother did

not nourish fine sentiments and she was a born destroyer. Theodora

considered her mother as inimical to her progress. She believed that her

mother was "born with an axe in her hand" (p. 121) and this opinion

prompted her to think of spilling her blood. But the decision was averted

because she felt the seriousness of such an action and threw back the thin

knife. But the very "thought of murder' is repulsive because she knew the

Biblical precaution that sin is not in deeds but in thoughts. Sin is a state of

the mind and not the act of the hand. So she felt guilty and uttered these

painful words: "I am guilty of murder that has not been done. It is the

samething, blood is only on accompaniment" (p. 123). This sense of remorse

opened the sphere of possibilities, the possibilities of redemption. Till the

death of her mother, Theodora lived faithfully to her and did all that could be

done as a devoted child.

The death of her mother offered her physical freedom to move about.

But she realized that the real enemy for her pilgrimage to perfection lies

within, in herself, her 'self. She understood that self-effacement, self-

abnegation and self-denial are the only steps to reach the redemptive shore of

salvation. And Theodora's European connection helps her to annihilate her

 25

emptiness and nothingness. So her name was torn out by the roots, just as

she had torn the tickets, rail and steamship, on the mountain road" (p.269) in

order to be closer to meaning and purity. One can assume that by "this way

perhaps she came a little closer to humility, to anonymity, to pureness of

being" (p.269). This novel is Patrick White's first successful novel, which

branded him as a morally compelling and morally conscious writer.

Patrick White's next novel The Tree of Man was published in 1956.

It deals with Stan Parker's encounter with himself and the world. Stan Parker

did not wait for long to marry Amy and they started their life like anybody

else in passionate union and their life seemed to be a "contentment of

absolute perfection" (TM.p 111). But the discrepancy between the husband

and the wife in their attitude to life, nature and human relationships soon

emerged. The husband looked for something enduring though visionary, but

the wife sees things right under her nose. Stan Parker's association with

Nature and its forces and Amy's hesitation and disregard for the Natural

forces are symbols of their discord. The blowing wind has flung together

everything.
 26

"Twig and leaf, man and woman, horse's hair and

ribbony reins .... But it was principally a progress of

wind"(p.27).

As in the case of Job, who utters that "God gave and God took back", the

wind representing the omnipotence of G o d " took back what it gave" (p.27).

Amy asks Stan whether the wind blows heavily in these parts. But Stan

"made a motion with his mouth, [since] it was not one of the things to

answer. Besides, he recognized and accepted the omnipotence of distance"

(p.27). The difference between Amy and Stan is still clear as "this was

something she did not, and perhaps never would. She had begun to hate the

wind, and the distance, and the road, because her importance tended to

dwindle" (p.27). He is one level higher than his wife as he started looking up

as against Amy's downward looks. Her materialistic attractions cannot take

her to the next plane of existence. Therefore the crisis continues and Stan

Parker feels alienated. The stage has not come for him either to see the glory

of the Almighty revealed in Nature since he became a prisoner within himself.

He was unable to find out the significance of "the orange fire of evening,

burning and blazing in its distance with a prophetic intensity" (p.49).

 27

The Parker's had to face a natural disaster in the form of a flood and it

brought to them a child, later identified as Bub Quigley. Amy's sense of

possession is at the highest and she wants to own the helpless and hapless

child. But the boy left the home unnoticed, leaving behind his only

possession - a coloured glass. The child does not belong to anybody, it does

not attach itself to anybody as it is "homeless" and an "orphan" like the status

of man on the earth. Stan might have looked at the child as a "rarefied

version of ... himself" (David Tacey, p. 132). But later the Parkers had two

children of their own, Ray and Thelma. But the parental love on these

children was not equal and just and as such Ray showed signs of violence,

indicating the type of man he is going to be. The problem of objectification of

the self 'was so acute with Amy that she wanted to "possess" her husband as

she possesses an object. Stan Parker on the other hand tried to be elusive

from the clutches of his wife, but was, in the initial stage, attracted by the

beauty of Madeline. He wanted to enter into her and hide there eternally. He

wished he could sink his face in her flesh, to smell it. . .

They were burning together at the head of the smoking

stair case. She had now to admit, without repugnance.

 28

that the sweat of his body was drugging her, and that

she could have, and not returned (TM p. 179).

But this affection and attraction did not last long. Stan saw her beauty

^shrunk^ and ^shrivelled up'. Step by step Stan Parker started distancing

himself from human habitation and was dragged 'by the mystery of stillness'

reflected in Nature.

The estrangement from his son Ray and daughter Thelma was further

intensified as he discovered Amy's secret affair with a salesman. Now

everything has proved that he is lone and his family life, or earthly ties would

not be of any help in his solitary sojourn towards eternity. Now his only

consolation is to move towards the right direction in search of his main stay,

his shelter, his God. Everything appeared to be meaningful and significant.

The spiritual phase dawned on him and "a communion of soul and scene was

taking place", (p.397). He felt that he had a part in Nature and Nature is a

part of him. He is moving near the ultimate domain of the pure spirit, of the

transcendent God. His enlightened soul could not communicate his vision to

his wife. He was speechless and silent when he experienced the turmoil of

passion within him. He understood that there were many things remaining
 29

with him unsaid than said. He was not able to "express the poem that was

locked inside him" (TM p.29) and he died with the poem as a pregnant lady

with a child inside. But he had his visions clear and he reached the religious

mode of existence. He understood that the tree of man was made unholy by

the presence of Satan and to fight against the arch rival is the chief end of life.

Voss (1957) is the next novel that Patrick W h i t e published. Voss, A

Fringe of Leaves (1956) and The Vivisector are the three novels selected for

intensive scrutiny because the moral compulsions is more explicit in these

three novels. Therefore, in the first chapter only a general introduction is

aimed at. Voss is the name of a German explorer who feels compelled to

explore the Australian deserts as he feels that "Australia is his by right of

vision" (Vp.29). He, as in the Old Testament period, when Israel was the

chosen country, claims Australia as a country prophetically chosen for his

encounter and experience. His travel into the desert ultimately turns out to be

a travel into himself, seeking l<jiowledge and revelation. At the end, by an act

of humility he overcomes the Evil within and passes on to the spiritual world

enlightened and refined.

 30

Voss starts the expedition in the company of Harry Robarts, a simple

and good man, "an easy shadow to wear" (Vp.31). He is a good follower,

subservient and obeying. The others are Le Mesurier, a poet who can

prophesy their fate, Palfreyman who believes that Voss is a kind of deliverer, a

god-head, Judd the convict, Angus and Turner. Laura was with Voss

spiritually and she too participated in the expedition through the landscape of

her mind. Their travel to conquer the desert is equal to Hemingway's old

man's attempt to conquer the powers of the sea. But the difference is that the

old man stood against the elements like King Lear in the open heath

demanding thunder and lightning to "strike at the thick rotundity of the

earth'. Whereas Voss could not fight against the Desert as he thought himself

to be a God. His pride and arrogance worked against him and in turn he was

destroyed by the mighty powers of the void. He is an alien to the quality of

humility as he placed himself equal to Jehovah to the Israelites in the desert.

"Ah, the humility", he says, "is so particularly loathsome. My God, besides, is

above humility" (Vp.90) and in the same vein he continued to utter his words

of arrogance. He says, "I am not in the habit of setting myself limits" and to

Mr. Bonner he replies that he has not studied the map of the desert because "I

will first make it" CVn "^OV

 31

The journey started like the journey of the three wise men from the

East insearch of Infant Jesus in dead of winter. The camels refracted and

those accompanied the Magi grumbled and rebelled. It is also like the

rebellion of the Israelites against Moses and Aaron in the Desert when they

were confronted with painful experiences. Here also, the party accompanying

Voss was split. Voss asked Palfreyman to face the inimical Aborigines. He

moves forward trusting to his faith and ruminating over his past life. " over

the dry earth he went, with his springy exaggerations" (p.324) and met death

when the spear of an Aborigine struck him in his side. The death of

Palfreyman tragically opened the eyes of the others and they understood what

was instored for them. Judd, the convict, Turner and Angus decided not to

accompany Voss any further. But Turner and Angus also die leaving Judd

physically alive, but tortured in mind. Voss also meets his end in the desert

but he is humanised by the loving memories that he had about Laura and he

becomes a legend as his soul has joined with the wind his body with the dust.

The legend is that "Voss did not die. He is there still, it is said, in the country

and always will be" (V.p.448).

The next novel that brought fame to Patrick W h i t e is Riders in the

Chariot, published in 1961. The main theme of transcendence and divinity is

 32

revealed through the life and experiences of four personages namely Mary

Hare, supposed to be a misfit of the Australian gentry, a poor washerwoman

named Ruth Godbold, a Jew called Mordecai Himmelfarb and an aborigine

named Alf Dubbo. All these four characters arrive at a stage in their life

through individual and collective experiences when they find good in every

thing like the Duke Senior of As y o u Like It and God in everything' like

Wordsworth of the Romantic Movement. Each one of them identifies in the

other some spark of divinity and it makes them believe that they are the riders

of the chariot of God. In order to understand how they reached the level of

the heightened reality. W e have to look in to their experiences separately.

Mary Hare is one with Nature and she considers Nature as her "path of

existence" ( R C p . l 2 ) . She feels proud to say that all in Nature, the land, stick

and stone are better understood by her than anybody else. Her love of Nature

is the result of her being rejected by her father saying that she was ugly to look

at and her mother's uncertain and drifting kindness. She, like the flora and

fauna in Nature, expresses the beauty of divinity as a prism refracts the ray of

light into beautiful rainbow colours. She believes that divinity passes through

the blue sky, the round ocean and the mind of man as Wordsworth claimed.

She openly states:

 34

Eden and here in the garden of Xanadu it is the housekeeper Mrs. Jolley.

MaryHare's Icnowledge leads to identify the evil within and without. She

knows that she too nourished some human element secretly beneath the show

of divinity. Some times she discovers this fact and utters in despair "it is I

who am bad" (p.83).

The spark of Divinity was first kindled in her by her father's reference

to the chariot of the Sun God in the setting time. The chariot in the western

horizon is the symbol of the triumphant march of the all-pervading Divinity.

She was asked by her father to identify the riders of the chariot. But she

could not unfathom the mystery behind such a reference. But after her

father's death, she is haunted by the reference of the chariot and she pays

more attention to it and somewhat understands its meaning because she

searches for the chariot across the sky and

waits, with the breath fluctuating in her lungs, and the

blood thrilling through her distended veins.... And sure

enough, the wheels began to plough the tranquil fields of

white sky. She could feel the breath of horses on her

battered cheeks [and] she was lifted up [to the sky] (p.37),
 35

and later identifies herself with one of the riders of the chariot. The other

rider-be is Mrs.Ruth Godbold. She too has her share of tragic experiences.

She loses her mother and brother. Her father's second marriage drives her out

of England to Australia and she works as a maid in the house of Chalmers

Robinson. All who move closely with her easily identify her piety, charity and

goodness. Mary Hare herself is of high opinion of Godbold. She is taken as

"the most positive evidence of good" (p.64). Mrs. Chalmers Robinson herself

praises her as a woman too good and almost "a Idnd of saint" (p.485). She

plays the good Samaritan to Mary Hare, the drunken Aborigine and the

seriously wounded Himmelfarb. She two has the vision of the chariot. The

hymns that she sings in the church open her curiosity to see her Christ in the

chariot. The lines go like this:-

See the conqueror mounts in triumph,

See the king in royal state

Riding in the clouds His chariot

To his heavenly palace gate (p.229).

The very vision of the chariot has changed her attitude and she feels

that she is gifted with "the wings of love and charity" (p.489) as it touches the
 36

> e r y centre' of her being. Her marriage with Tom is a failure, as she finds

unable to redeem him and make him "strong enough to suffer the full force of

his wife's love" (p.286). Therefore he leaves her and does not return. On his

death she feels 'reduced by half and she pours out her heart in a cry that is

typical of the concern that Christ showed when he found the crying Martha

and Mary at the death of their brother Lazarus. In this sense she is raised to

the level of divinity and she has become a 'Christ-figure' crying for every

erring man. She cries at the sight of the dead body of her husband, but this

cry is not for her alone or for the dead,

but for the condition of men, for all those she had loved,

burningly, or at a respectful distance, from her father, seated

at his bench in his prison of flesh, and her own brood of

puzzled little girls, for her former mistress, always clutching

at the hem and finding it come away in her hand, for her

fellow initiates, the mad woman and the Jew of Sarsaparilla,

even for the black fellow she had met at Mrs. IChalil's... She

cried, finally, for the people beside her in the street, whose

doubts she would never dissolve in words, but understood.

 37

perhaps, from those she had experienced (p.288).

Ruth has become a principle, the principle of love and concern'.

The next ~ rider in the chariot' is Mordecai Himmelfarb, the Jew. The

jews, by the nature of their ordeal from the past to the present are looking for

some signs of the Second Coming of Christ to get themselves redeemed. So,

Himmelfarb's vision of the burning chariot and ultimately a rider himself is

the vision of salvation and self-realization. He too had his moments of

anxiety and anguish as his parents were divided in their spiritual vision. The

secular rationalism of his father and the traditional and devout piety of his

mother were poles apart dividing Himmelfarb in to two loyalties. The

conversion of his father to Christianity leaving aside the Jewish tradition is the

last blow on the fragile mind. But he stood steadfast in his Jewish religion and

he married Reha, a Jewish girl. His mystical experiences make him visualize

the chariot and he wants to share his moments of enlightenment with his wife.

He speaks to her:-

It is difficult to distinguish [the chariot]. Just when I think I

have understood, I discover some fresh form. So many

 38

streaming with implications. There is the Throne of God, for

instance. That is obvious enough-all gold and chrysoprase,

and Jasper. Then there is the chariot of redemption, much

more shadowy, poignant, personal (pp. 135-36).

According to Roderick from this moment onwards Himmelfarb comes under

the spell of Merkabah mysticism signifying the Chariot-throne of God as seen

by the Old Testament prophet Ezelciel. The second World War and the

Jewish suffering at the hands of Hitler, his loss of his wife and the resultant

distracted thoughts are the common inherited traits of all Jews, their legacy of

suffering. "He would drift for hours in a state between spirit and substance,

searching for the problem of atonement" (p.157). He wanders as a dead man

and he does not think of death as there is no " purpose in dying twice",

(p. 157). He miraculously escaped from the Germans and comes to Australia

and the second phase of the saga of suffering starts. His experience in

Australia especially in Sarsaparilla helps him to come to contact with the other

riders in the chariot, that is the other visionaries of the chariot. Their similar

mission is identified and he considers Mary Hare as a mystic figure of a

"zaddik" who knows everything far deep into the life of things. A sense of

oneness is formed and he claims that "despite the differences of geography

 39

and race, they [the riders] were, and always had been, engaged on a similar

mission" (p.304). He is truly humbled by the goodness of Mrs. Godbold, the

other rider. Himmelfarb's experience in the cycle factory in Barranugli, where

now he works, leads him to contact AJf Dubbo, the fourth rider of the chariot.

The four riders form a secret understanding among themselves and they share

the common vision. All of them undergo bitter experiences and finally enter

in to redemption through suffering.

Alf Dubbo, the fourth rider of the chariot, also has his own share of

loneliness and alienation. He was an artist and as such he has become a social

out-caste. He is "neither the actor, nor the spectator, [but] was the most

miserable of human beings, the artist (p.407). He is an illegitimate half-caste

adopted by Rev. Timothy Calderon and his sister, Mrs. Pask, a widow. Dubbo

is a born painter, misunderstood by everyone around. He is the fit example of

Emerson's concept of a genius. According to Emerson, a genius is a great man

and he is misunderstood. "To be great is to be misunderstood", Emerson

categorically states in his famous treatise on "Self-Reliance". Dubbo and his

art were ununderstood and often misunderstood. He was not tolerated by the

average and was considered a "brute that no decentman would touch, only

with a broom"(p.309). Mrs. Pask and the Rector of the church misunderstand
 40

his genius and he leaves them drifting towards infinity. "Dubbo is the

educated half black owned neither by the whites nor by the blacks. His

alienation continues. But finally he comes out of himself through his art.

Initially he "wondered how he might penetrate what remained a thick white

mist in his mind" (p.325). But finally be becomes a rider in the chariot and is

redeemed.

The next novel for which Patrick W h i t e is famous , ^ is the one

published in 1966, The Solid Mandala. This novel adds to Patrick White's

concept of life as an episode of innocence, innocence through experience. It is

almost like getting back the divine light of the childhood through physical and

mental ordeals. The Brown brothers, Arthur Brown and Waldo Brown live in

total bliss, one considering the other as his counterpart, the other self. Their

childhood was the perfect and the ideal one, which everyone wishes to have.

Their closeness and affinity is expressed in the following sentences.

Sometimes Waldo buried his face in the crook of

Arthur's neck, just to smell, and then ... they would

start to punch each other [and] they wrestled

 42

[the] benefit of having a home of his own. A bed to

himself. And the meals Dulcie would prepare, rather dainty,

foreign-tasting dishes, more digestable, more imaginative

and spontaneously conceived (p. 150).

The proposed marriage will give him physical support and enough time and

peace to work up on his project of writing a psychological novel depicting the

intricacies and nuances of family relationships born out of his secondary

imagination and he intended to "buy a filing cabinet to install in his

study'Xp. 1 50). This selfish and ego-centric calculation had a jolt when he got

an answer from Dulcie that she was already engaged.

The difference between Waldo and Arthur is further exemplified in

their responses to the emotional need of Mrs. Poulter. She longs for a child

and Waldo presents a plastic doll whereas Arthur offers himself as her child.

This down-the-earth,.practical and warm attitude of Arthur sees him through

ordeals and comes out tolerably successful, whereas Waldo fails with his

intellectual aridity and spiritual sterility. Waldo does not progress in his

vision whereas Arthur's search for wholeness and perfection as symbolized by

the glass marble attains a mandalic significance. Mandala otherwise Icnown as

 43

eternity or perfection is solidified by the glass marble of Arthur and it becomes

"a symbol of totality" and like Wordsworth's 'round ocean' it becomes "the

dwelling of God" (SMp.238). The relationship among the four, Arthur,

Waldo, Dulcie and Mrs. Poulter forms the core of the search for perfection

symbolized by the solid and round glass marble. Arthur, the protagonist is

gifted with a sense of cordiality among the four and the whole narrative is

carried forward by his ability to form a connecting four-cornered square within

the round glass marble. The intellectual pursuit undertaken by Waldo never

connects him with any one and he develops paranoia and he believes that

others mistrust him though he is great by his own intellectual right. Arthur

tries to win over him by his loving words and meaningful movements. But

Waldo does not pay heed to his words and moves away form him. The

practical approach of Arthur as against the theoretical coolness of Waldo is

capable of turning Waldo, but his heart is hardened towards him like the heart

of the Egptian Pharaoh towards Moses. So, Arthur comes to the conclusion

that "he could never give out from his own soul enough of that love which was

there to give. So, his brother remained cold and dry" (SM p.286). Arthur

feels frustrated as he fails to save Waldo and morally takes the blame of

Waldo's death on himself, though Waldo dies attempting to kill Arthur

 44

himself. The sense of moral guilt purifies Arthur and Mrs. Poultcr accepts him

as her own child. "It was necessary to take him in her arms, all the men she

had never loved, the children she had never had" (SM p.31 i ) . Finally he loses

his tranquillity and is led away to the mental asylum.

The Vivisector is the next novel by which Patrick White established

himself a world class novelist. The chariot, the solid glass ball and here in The

Vivisector art, become the tools to discover divinity. Hurtle Duffield is the

protagonist who extends himself to the horizon of divinity through Art. Like

Shakespeare's tragic heroes. White's protagonists also subject themselves to

the tug o' war of opposing powers and are purified due to the mental conflict

and the suffering. The main thread of the conflict is between the 'heard

melodies and the unheard melodies', "creation' and Revelation' which fails to

be fully translated into creation. As in the other novels, the protagonist

achieves a higher level of existence only through the willing surrender of willto

the ultimate will of God. Man looks on the face, but God looks into the heart,

searching and re-searching. In that aspect God is the vivisector analysing

human soul in his own ways, different from the ways of man. Patrick W h i t e

considers an artist, a creator and in that sense shares the creative potential of

God and thus becomes a vivisector. The Painter becomes 'the painted', the full
 45

canvas- of the great painter, God' and 'instead of painting, he is "being

painted with .... on and on" (Vs.p.639). The human potter becomes the clay

in the hands of the divine and master Potter, God. This Biblical imagery

opens up before our eyes Patrick White's commitments to the moral vision

that runs through all his novels.

Every true artist is a rebel, a ~misfit' in the social order and as such he

does not get immediate recognition. Christ has said that no prophet is

accepted in his own country and it is true with a genius also. The family

members, the social beings and the others surrounding an artist are dissatisfied

by the queerness, the strangeness, the difference and the individuality of a

genius. It is true in the case of Hurtle Duffield also.

There was so much of him that didn't belong to his family. He

could see them watching him, wanting to ask him questions.

Sometimes they did and he answered, but the answers weren't

the ones they wanted. They looked puzzled, even hurt (p. 13).

Artists find beauty reflected in God's creation more than an ordinary

individual. But people around him do not perceive the beauty found

everywhere. Duffield has a special attraction towards the wealthy mistress of

 46

Sunningdale, Mrs. AJfreda Courtney. When he moves closely with

Mrs.Courtney, he realizes that she is a vulgar and sensuous woman, trying to

trap him into the net of sexuality though he is her adopted son. This

unexpected assault on his manhood makes him leave her mansion-

Sunningdale and gets enlisted in the army. He flees from her as Joseph fled

from the clutches of the wife of the Pharaoh in Egypt.

Patrick W h i t e uses Mrs. Courtney as the centre of consciousness to

pour out his ideals and beliefs. He states that every artist has the potentiality

to vivisect what he sees. This view is corroborated by Mrs. Courtney, when

she makes a direct reference to Hurtle Duffleld, the artist. She says, "you

Hurtle, you were born with a knife in your hand... no, in your eyes" (p. 150).

Later, Hurtle's progress as an artist is through the sexual relationship provided

by Nance Lightfoot, the prostitute and he gets the ripeness of experience in

order to proceed to the level of artistic creativity. She offers him the model

for his paintings titled "Electric city" and "Marriage of Light". He penetrates

the outer covering of reality and enters into the core. He understands her

fully in and out.

He had torn the hook out of her gills, he had

 47

disembowelled her while still alive, he had watched her

no less cruel dissection by the Icnives of light. You

couldn't call an experience an experiment, but he had

profited by whatever it was. His centrifugal rocks

suggested something of her numb throbbing but he

hadn't till now entered into her life as he had into her

body (p.257).

Hurtle Duffield realizes the immortal truth that "God is the Divine Vivisector"

(p.269) soon after Nance's suicide.

The next novel that came out from the creative vision of Patrick White

is The Eye of the Storm (1973). The protagonist Elizabeth Hunter

undergoes various experiences which ultimately humble herself. This

discovery of humility takes her nearer to herself and she "discovers' her

identity. In the beginning she is self-centered and vainglorious. But when she

is caught in a storm in Brumby island where she was invited by the Warmings

to their summer palace along with her daughter Dorothy and Edward Pehl, a

Norwegian ecologist. She reaches the height of glory when she submits herself

to the supreme might of God as revealed in the storm. She grows in to a state
 48

of awareness and understanding. Like Jonah from the stomach of the whale,

Elizabeth Hunter from the eye of the storm calls for God and admits her

mistakes. She experiences the moment of transcendence by drinking the

redeeming elixir of life. She is taken to the centre of pure being and when the

novel opens she is in her death bed at the age of eighty six, travelling back to

her life through "the memory lane'. The narrative technique used by Patrick

White is that of "flash back" and it works brilliantly.

The moral vision that Patrick W h i t e is always concerned with is

intensified through the "storm scene' as in the case of King Lear. Lear

understands that he is no longer a king. But a 'frail, infirm' old man. This self

realization purifies him and he reaches the zone of redemption. Likewise

Elizabeth Hunter is awakened to a new experience and a new form of

consciousness and she reaches the heightened reality:-

She was no longer a body, least of all a woman; the myth of

her womanhood had been exploded by the storm. She was

instead a being, or more likely a flaw at the centre of this

jewel of light; the jewel itself, blinding and tremulous at the

same time, existed, flaw and all, only by grace.... (ES p.424).
 49

She changes her attitude since she has a glimpse of true life and true self. But

her love for man and matter has not advanced to the level of real salvation.

Yet she feels sorry for the ill-treatment meted out to her husband and children

and thus earns a place in paradise as the thief on the right side of crucified

Jesus. She starts very late the habit of loving her children Dorothy and Basil.

Since they have grown up without their mother's genuine love, they reject her

love when she offers it very late. So Elizabeth says:- "When you are prepared

to love them they do not want it, when they do, it's you who can't bear the

idea "(ES p.I 1). At the end Elizabeth unwillingly accepts her children's plan

to take her to Thorogood village. This acceptance of the love of her children

makes her feel "a calm in which the self has been stripped of painfully, of its

human imperfections" (p.29) and she dies quite blissfully, submitting herself

to the will of the Divine one.

A Fringe of Leaves (1976) and The Twyborn Affair, like The Eye

of the Storm share the pet formula of Patrick W h i t e namely, "dying is

creation". Ellen Roxburgh, the protagonist of A Fringe of Leaves experiences

physical and mental torture to a considerable extent. She has become a

castaway off the Queensland coasts and is taken a captive by the tribals, but
 50

finally she is rescued by Jack Chance, a convict. Her voyage to Van Diemen's

Land to visit her renegate brother-in-law has symbolical overtones, which

signifies man's journey to the waters beyond death. Her journey through the

heart of darkness enlightens her to the level of inter-subjectivity and social

awareness. The darker regions in our mind should be acquainted with, in

order to l<jiow our frailties and faults. Before Ellen Roxburgh got the name,

she was a country girl living very close to Nature with the name Ellen Gluyas.

The primitive side of the individual is depicted in her role of Ellen Gluyas as

she was living in Australia a "country of thorns, whips, murderers, thieves,

shipwrecks and adulteresses" (FL,p.280). Ellen Roxburgh reflects the civilized

side when she marries Austin Roxburgh who refines her to the sphere of

culture and art.

Ellen Roxburgh's empathy with the suffering selves like Jack, the convict and

Holly, the scullery maid is the result of her own sufferings in the past. She

undergoes untold miseries and ordeals and in her hunger she becomes

cannibalistic. She remembers the moments of such a reversion and she was

forced to eat human flesh because the instinct for survival was too strong in

her. Her life with the aborigines is the worst part of her life as she had to live

like an animal. But better sense prevailed on her later and "in the light of
 51

Christian morality, she must never think of the incident again" (FL.p.244),

though in the hour of crisis she "could not have explained how tasting flesh

from the human thigh-bone [was] in the stillness of a forest morning" (p.245).

By this act she had nourished not only her animal body, "but some darker

needs of the hungry spirit" (p.245). The reversal into bestiality and the

sudden shift to "cordiality" and civilization emphasise the mental tension and

the spiritual crisis she had undergone. But she overcomes her darker traits

and she is ready to be integrated into the civilized society. She passes from

the unreal to the real, from the outer to the inner and experiences a re-birth.

Tacey has clearly stated that

Ellen Roxburgh suffers a psychological crisis but she turns

crisis to transformation by accepting the inner reality,

personified here as her childhood self Ellen Gluyas. She

manages to integrate this into her personality and by

integration she releases it from its suppressed state, so

that it no longer appears as a demonic Mr. Hyde that

must force its way destructively into consciousness.

(p.36).
 52

Thus through Ellen, Patrick White underlines his pre-occupation with his

moral vision - a vision that takes Christian from the city of Destruction to the

city of Salvation.

The next novel T h e T w y b o r n Affair (1979) is also a "travel from the

known to the unknown". The ^unknown' is the hitherto discarded thread of

Divinity that manifests itself in all living and non-living things. This lustrous

element surfaces at some point in time, quite unknown to the human mind,

unheard by the human ears and unspoken and unseen. Eddie Twyborn, the

centre of consciousness in the novel is living, but partly living as he had a very

unhappy childhood. Ever since he was living between two worlds, "one dead

and the other powerless to be born".

He moves between Paradise and Hell, order and chaos, life and death

and also like Tiresias of the "Waste Land' he moves between two principles,

"the male principle with hairs on his face and the female principle with

"wrinlded female breast'. (TA, p.40). He is the "pseudo-man-cum-crypto-

woman", (TA,p.298). His father does not loiow how to exhibit his love and

affection and his mother loves her dogs more than her children, like the

"sinister parent of the under world" (Frye, p.238). He wants to escape from
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the past in to a future but "drawn back in to what I could not endure but long

for" (TA, p.40). He feels lonely and unclaimed. He has no one to call his own

and his diary is full of his notes on loneliness and despair. He makes a note

that "nothing of me is mine, not even the body I was given to inhabit, nor the

disguises chosen for it. The real E. has not yet been discovered, and perhaps

never will be" (p.79).

Eddie's experiences from feminine to masculine personality cover many

incidents and situation's. He is seen at once as a war hero going to Sydney

and his return to Australia helps him know "that he would emerge atlast from

the bombardment, not only of a past war, but the past"(p. 133). His

masculine affair with Marcia is an act of self satisfaction and 'an exercise in

self vindication" ( p . 2 I 7 ) . His homosexual responses to Don Prowse, the

station master, strips him of his so called heterosexual leanings. At times he

feels as broken pieces which can be fixed together only in humility and

humanity, though he had three different personalities. His 'triumvirate in

sexuality' are the three distinct roles he played. At first he exists as Edoxia

Vatatzes, living in France with his Greek lover and in Sydney as Eddie

Twyborn and at the end as a fashionable whore mistress in London assuming

the name Edith Trist. He plays hide and seek with his personality,
 54

suppressing emotions to conceal himself rather than reveal himself. He exists

as a "mistake trying to correct itself", (p. 143), and an "aberration from the

normal' and "the reality of love, which is the core of reality itself, had eluded

her [as Eadith] and perhaps always would" (p.336).

Eddie undertakes a journey to findout his parents and thereby his roots

and origin. He failed to meet his father as he was dead already. He meets his

mother on a bench near a church, where Eddie came to pray. They are united

as mother and child, though the child shows ambivalent claims to be a son

and a daughter. But his mother is not concerned with masculine or feminine

form since she recognizes herself as a mother and accepts him whole-heartedly

and completely as a child.

The male and female identities of Eddie are immediately integrated in

the "sexless" existence as a child. The mother muses "Edith or Eddie no

matter which this fragment of myself that I lost is returned where it belongs"

(p.432). This moment of grace exists more in the mother's imagination as he

is killed in a bomb blast before the actual reunion. This reunion is the perfect

example of an individual who inherits at once both male and female

characteristics. This meeting point between 'man' and 'woman' in one is the
 55

meeting between Christ, the bridegroom and Church, the bride. In this way

Patrick W h i t e opens before our eyes his vision of morality and the ultimate

salvation that it envisages.