A study of the novels of Patrick White : "Man and the individual experience."

Abstract

She thought of the narrowness of the limits within which a human soul may speak and be understood by its nearest of mental kin, of how soon it reaches that solitary land of the individual experience, in which no fellow footfall is ever heard. (Olive Schreiner). Epigraph to Part One of The Aunt's Story. The title of this study, 'Man and the Individual Experience1, has been taken from the passage quoted above, and the quotation itself serves admirably to suggest the main preoccupations of Patrick White in all his novels. For White, in spite of certain shifts of emphasis and diversity of treatment, has been concerned primarily with the problems of human existence; with the isolation of the individual, and his attempt to establish some communication with those nearest to him, and to arrive at a satisfying condition of personal integration and self-fulfilment. From his desire to suggest the ’’mystery and poetry” of life and to attempt an imaginative synthesis of some greater metaphysical reality with the observed realities of ordinary living, White has succeeded in adding another dimension to the novel in this country. Previous Australian novelists have belonged rather to the naturalistic tradition, and White's emphasis on the inner and spiritual life of the individual has introduced a new element; one, however, which has been evident for some time in Australian poetry. Through the exercise of iiis imaginative vision and the immediacy of his presentation he has attempted to open up for the reader the world of greater realities of which he himself is convinced. His concern is not vith nationalistic or social issues, but with man and his search for personal identity, for complete self-realization and for a share in some final and satisfying reality. (First two paragraphs of Introduction.)