Themes and preoccupations in the novels of Australian expatriates

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to fill a gap in Australian literary criticism by examining certain recurrent themes and preoccupations in the novels of representative Australian expatriate writers from Mrs Campbell Praed, who published her first novel in 1880, to George Johnston, whose last unfinished novel was published in 1971. Whereas the achievement of those writers who stayed at home and expressed recognizably Australian social values in their work has received a great deal of critical attention, the work of the expatriates has more often been ignored or rejected as "un-Australian". It is the contention of this thesis that only when the expatriate heritage has been explored as fully as the nativist tradition can a balanced overview of Australian literature, and indeed of Australian cultural history, be attained. The theme of expatriation --both the reality and the dream of escape from a provincial society to one of the metropolitan centres of the world --and its thematic offshoots --the experiences of exile and of alienation, the voyage as escape and quest, and the difficulties of communicating in an increasingly fragmented world -- are examined in a few of the novels of Mrs Campbell Praed; Henry Handel Richardson, Christina Stead, Martin Boyd, Patrick White, Helen Simpson, and George Johnston. Discussion also centres around their recurring preoccupations with the relationship between the Old World and the New, with the conflict between a need for roots and a need for motion, and an interest in the landscape and in the emotions of nostalgia and of depaysement which it arouses. Particular attention is paid in the first section of the thesis to the use and development of the international novel and, within it, of the Australian heroine. An Australian Heroine Policy and Passion, Maurice Guest, For Love Alone and Lucinda Brayford are each seen to centre about the journey (or the desired journey)of a young provincial person to a centre of metropolitan culture, and to concentrate on his or her quests for love and freedom. Because the journey is a basic element in the expatriate experience, the second section concentrates on the theme of the quest for knowledge and for freedom in novels of a symbolic orientation. The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney The Aunt's Story and Voss describe three quests - of an emigrant, of a traveller and of an explorer - each of which ends in the alienation of madness. The third section examines the memoirs of three character-narrators, who attempt to comprehend and conquer their sense of the essentially solitary fate of the individual within a world he cannot understand and in which he is torn by dualities he can neither reconcile nor accept, by exploring and ordering their experiences in an imaginative work of art. Boomerang, the four Langton novels of Martin Boyd and George Johnston's Meredith trilogy are discussed in this final section. Whereas the protagonists discussed in Section One embark on literal voyages, which never lose their close connection to reality however many further dimensions they assume, the protagonists of Section Two undertake symbolic quests, in which the distinctions between dream and reality tend to blur. The character-narrators examined in Section Three are introspective voyagers, who bring dream and reality together in their art. The investigation concludes with the observation that most of Australia's expatriate novelists are more deeply concerned with the symbolic than with the literal implications of expatriation. They use the concepts of exile to question the validity of the norms of behaviour and belief which man has fashioned himself in order to cope with his own divided nature and the demands of his world. Their novels illustrate the fact that the expatriate perspective may involve an increased awareness of the value of a felt relationship with the land of birth, in addition to the kind of critical distance which a knowledge of alienation may bring. Australian literature appears more diversified, more sophisticated and more critical of the Australian ethos when the novels of expatriate writers are included in the literary tradition. Show more