International Journal of Literature and Arts
2014; 2(6-1): 15-22
Published online November 23, 2014 (http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/j/ijla)
doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.s.2014020601.13
ISSN: 2331-0553 (Print); ISSN: 2331-057X (Online)
Significant relationship in Patrick White’s The Aunt’s Story
Asaad Faqe Muhamed
Master’s Degree- English, University of Sydney, As Sulaimanyah, Iraq
Email address:
[email protected]
To cite this article:
Asaad Faqe Muhamed. Significant Relationship in Patrick White’s The Aunt’s Story. International Journal of Literature and Arts. Special
Issue: Discourses of Militarization and Identity: Literature of Conflict. Vol. 2, No. 6-1, 2014, pp. 15-22. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.s.2014020601.13
Abstract: The Aunt’s Story is perhaps Patrick White’s most famous and detailed work of the disintegration of identity. It is
about freedom. The whole plot deals with Theodora Goodman’s struggle for a free world in which she can attain truth. The
Aunt’s Story is primarily concerned with Theodora’s attempt to attain some sort of epiphany, particularly when she yields to
moments of close relationships with other characters and the landscape. However, this communion is thwarted on the grounds
that it threats her spiritual world. This work explains Theodora’s spiritual odyssey by highlighting her childhood recollections
and her most important relationships with the other characters such as Frank, Clarkson, and Moraitis. It will explain Patrick
White’s rationale behind emphasising spirituality and ignoring the physical world. In the end, it will put White’s philosophical
dichotomy of spiritual development and physical nature under scrutiny in the light of Western Philosophy.
Keywords: Disintegration of Identity, Freedom, Epiphany, Significant Relationship, Spiritual World, Physical World
1. Introduction
The Aunt’s Story is perhaps Patrick White’s most famous
and detailed work of a disintegration of identity. It is about
freedom. The whole plot deals with Theodora Goodman’s
struggle for a free world in which she can attain truth. The
Aunt’s Story is primarily concerned with Theodora’s attempt
to attain some sort of epiphany, particularly when she yields
to moments of close relationships with other characters and
the landscape. However, this communion is thwarted on the
grounds that it is a threat to her spiritual world.
Theodora’s spiritual odyssey coincides with the
disintegration of her socialised identity, her attempt to
destroy “the great monster self”, her physical development
(pp. 128). It is important to point out that Theodora’s
childhood environment paves the way for her natural desires
towards spirituality to win over her physical development. As
the external level, her home in Meroe is described as a deadly
place where only images of “black volcanic hill, dark pines,
and dead yellow grass” along with “the volcanic ash coating
the windows” can be seen. On the internal level, at home, her
“monstrous mother” who is a “small, neat, hateful woman,
with small, neat, buckled shoes, and many rings” engenders
some dangerous apprehensions about the physical world
which gradually disappears. This does not mean that
Theodora lacks tendency towards enjoying the physical
world. Rather, she possesses a “volcanic fire” which seems to
have resulted from her mother and the deadly Meroe. This
volcanic fire gradually becomes a warrior which guards her
spirituality and fights any external threat. As a result, it
consciously and unconsciously thwarts every significant
relationship one after the other.
Her sterile communion with other characters such as Frank,
Clarkson, and Moraitis is a good example of White’s
tendency to undervalue the flesh and the body. White thwarts
Theodora’s collaborative effort in a number of ways the most
important of which is disqualifying her relationships from
any significance other than private on the grounds that they
are figments of her own imagination. This does not mean that
Theodora lacks a potential for a creative and fruitful
collaboration. Rather, the problem is with her inability to
enact it (Kiernan 462). Eventually, she becomes mad and
schizophrenic and ends her odyssey in a remote place
without friends, family, and home.
2. Significant Relationship in Patrick
White’s The Aunt’s Story
The Aunt’s Story starts with Mrs. Goodman’s death,
Theodora’s mother. This is the most important part of the
novel because after her mother’s death, Theodora becomes
free, starts her spiritual odyssey from Meroe to France and
16
Asaad Faqe Muhamed: Significant Relationship in Patrick White’s The Aunt’s Story
finally to America. Mrs. Goodman plays an important role in
strengthening Theodora’s volcanic fire to thwart her
significant relationships, and gradually banishing the
physical world entirely by choosing a total emotional retreat
into a schizophrenic world.
Theodora’s childhood is very important particularly the
deadly environment of Meroe and her mother. Despite that
Theodora is presented as a rather passive character who often
anticipates “superior fresh acts”, yet the cycle of some
pivotal images throughout the novel paves the way for the
reader to explore Theodora’s identity (pp. 141).
A number of scholars criticise White for squeezing too
many images into a small-size novel without offering a
detailed explanation of them. Thelma Herring, for instance,
argues that The Aunt’s Story fails to offer sufficient hints in
order for the reader to decipher the strain of such a complex
pattern of these polysemic symbols which are central in the
novel (6). It is, to some extent, a legitimate criticism that the
images seem to be bewildering. However, because they play
an important role in connecting the fragmented parts of the
novel together, it seems to be vital for the images to be
polysemous.
It is true that The Aunt’s Story is a novel which makes the
reader tired taking him to a journey from past to future and
back to the present. It is not like other classic works in
narration, peeling off the story like a mangosteen and putting
it before the reader to consume. When interviewed, White
simply said, “You only had to pick up a library copy to see
where the honest Australian reader had given it up as a bad
job” (258). Therefore, White’s The Aunt’s Story, like James
Joyce’s Ulysses, demands an intelligent, indefatigable reader
who can endure the protagonist’s odyssey.
There are several images and symbols in The Aunt’s Story
such as images of fire, volcano, bones, and hawks which
offer great help in understanding the process by which White
posits a dichotomy between the physical and the spiritual.
In The Aunt’s Story, White presents his heroine and other
characters with a potential for collaboration; however, he
thwarts this collaboration on the grounds that it is infertile
(Riemer 26). In doing so, White separates physical nature
from spiritual development which, according to Western
Philosophy, they complete each other and the absence of
either of them makes one uncertain of the existence of
external reality (Levi 339).
We mentioned that the environment of Meroe is one of the
significant elements of Theodora’s life which makes her
ignore the physical world. From the very beginning of the
novel, Theodora closely identifies herself with her home,
Meroe. Images of a yellow house, the maze of the garden, the
cactus trees, the dead yellow grass, the black hill and the
volcanic ash are strongly attached to her life. These images
create a futile environment for Theodora which gradually
creates a tendency in her to evade the physical enjoyment.
Theodora tells us about Meroe through her childhood
recollections. Meroe, where “nothing remarkable had taken
place” except for playing music, roses being decayed, and the
human body disguising its actual mission of love and hate,”
obliges her to depart from the ordinary word and create an
imaginary universe instead (pp. 60). This seems to be Patrick
White’s tendency towards a radical disassociation of thought
and feeling.
The use of different colours is significant. Colours such as
yellow and black appear in the novel every now and then.
The yellow house in Meroe can be associated with
Theodora’s yellow skin, and the surrounding of Meroe, the
black volcanic hill in particular to Theodora’s black dressings:
She looked with caution at the yellow face of the house, at
the white shells in its placid, pocked stone. Even in sunlight
the hills surrounding Meroë were black. Her own shadow
was rather a suspicious rag. So that from what she saw and
sensed, the legendary landscape became a fact, and she could
not break loose from an expanding terror. (pp. 23)
The above description teaches so much about Theodora.
We learn later in the novel that she has a yellow face which
reminds us of “the yellow house”. We also learn that
Theodora often wears dark garments with a black hat.
Similarly, “the skin of Meroe was black” and “was
surrounded by a black volcanic hill” (290). Thus, Meroe is
very important to Theodora because her identity is strongly
linked to it.
Wherever she goes or imagines becomes another Meroe.
When Mr Goodman, for instance, tells her about a remote
place in Abyssinia, Theodora immediately links it to Meroe:
‘But at Meroë there is only a creek,' Theodora said. 'There
is another Meroë,' said Father, 'a dead place, in the black
country of Ethiopia.' Her hands were cold on the old spotted
paper of the complicated books, because she could not, she
did not wish to, believe in the second Meroë.
I shall go outside now,' Theodora said. Because she wanted
to escape from this dead place with the suffocating cinder
breath. She looked with caution at the yellow face of the house,
at the white shells in its placid, pocked stone. Even in sunlight
the hills surrounding Meroë were black. Her own shadow was
rather a suspicious rag. So that from what she saw and sensed,
the legendary landscape became a fact, and she could not
break loose from an expanding terror. (pp. 15-16)
She is very afraid of this place because she imagines herself
in that “dead place”, and that is what makes her rush out.
However, she finds no alternative as when she goes out she
only beholds “the yellow face of the house, the white shells in
its placid, pocked stone” and the “black volcanic hill” (pp. 17).
This foreshadows that wherever Theodora goes would be the
same. Indeed, Meroe repeats itself throughout the novel. For
instance, there is much similarity between Meroe and the
Jardin Exotique and Kilvert’s hut in the third part.
In the Jardin Exotique, the reader is introduced to the place
through Theodora’s viewpoint. She sees “paths” of the
garden in the Hotel du Midi as mazy as those of Meroe:
Walking slowly, in her large and unfashionable hat, she
began to be afraid she had returned to where she had begun,
the paths of the garden were the same labyrinth, the cactus
limbs the same aching stone. Only in the jardin exotique
because silence had been intensified, and extraneous objects
considerably reduced, thoughts would fall more loudly, and
International Journal of Literature and Arts 2014; 2(6-1): 15-22
the soul, with little. (146).
The Jardin Exotique is a second Meroë for Theodora due
to the qualities it has. Even the people in the Hotel du Midi
resemble those of Meroe, the way they think and their
behaviours as well. The first moment she meets Mrs. Rapallo,
Theodora remembers her “monstrous mother” in Meroe.
Through this flashback we understand Julia, Theodora’s
mother who, like the dead Meroe, plays a dangerous role in
engendering fear of the physical world in Theodora.
The first and most important flashback which tells almost
everything about Mrs. Goodman occurs in the rose garden in
Meroe where she is presented as a greedy, possessive, and
destructive woman:
The roses drowsed and drifted under her skin. 'Theodora, I
forbid you to touch the roses,' said Mrs Goodman. 'I'm not,'
cried Theodora. 'Or only a little. Some of them are bad.' And
they were. There was a small pale grub curled in the heart of
the rose. She could not look too long at the grub-thing
stirring as she opened the petals to the light. 'Horrid, beastly
grub,' said Fanny, who was as pretty and as pink as roses.
Theodora had not yet learnt to dispute the apparently
indisputable. But she could not condemn her pale and
touching grub. She could not substract it from the sum total
of the garden. So, without arguing, she closed the rose. (pp.
14)
The above flashback reveals so much about Julia and
Theodora. She is very aggressive with Theodora: she
prevents her from “touching the roses” which is an indication
of her tyrannical nature. As an innocent child Theodora is
forced to “learn [not] to dispute the indisputable”. Moreover
this destructive environment gradually engenders in her fear
and hatred towards the external world. It obliges Theodora to
create an imaginary world, as an alternative, and engross
herself in her spiritual world. It teaches her that relationship
with others will be problematic, and this is what makes her
put an end to her relationship with Clarkson later in the novel.
Back to the Hotel Du Midi, Theodora sees her destructive
mother in Mrs. Rapallo; they resemble each other because
both of them are possessive and greedy. We are told in the
beginning of the novel that Julia wants her daughters to
marry affluent people. Apart from that, she is obsessed with
dominance which can be seen early in the Chopin scene.
When Theodora begins playing a nocturne by Chopin,
Julia stops her and plays it herself. Angry, Theodora says,
“She took possession of the piano, she possessed Chopin,
they were hers while she wanted them, until she was ready to
put them down.” (pp. 21). The same situation repeats itself in
the Jardin Exotique. When she takes a flight with Mrs.
Rapallo to somewhere in Russia to see Gloria, her daughter’s
ceremony, Mrs Rapallo boastfully says, “Gloria is in
audience with a most important personage, behind the
Canova group, in the gallery on the right.” Furthermore, Mrs
Rapallo, like Julia, wants to possess everything. This
possessiveness is portrayed by the nautilus which she carries
and makes it her own “property”, as she says, “of course I
bought it. It is mine” (pp. 150). These scenes play a negative
role in Theodora’s life because she needs a peaceful place as
17
well as somebody who can understand her spiritual quest.
However, what she encounters is the same Meroe and people
that she wanted to run away from in the first place. These
destructive scenes make Theodora afraid of the external
reality and that is why she thwarts her relationships with the
other characters (Beatson 110).
Moreover, the reader learns that Theodora finishes her
odyssey in a place in Nevada in the United States which is
quite identical to Meroe. Kilvert’s hut, for instance, in which
Theodora rests for a while, is surrounded by “sonorous
islands”, which reminds Theodora of Meroe; she feels like
“She is again among the black volcanic hills of Meroe” (pp.
290). This remembrance of Meroe plays a very important
role in the disintegration of Theodora’s identity because
during this time she creates and terminates her fantasy in the
Jardin Exotique which is represented by Katina Pavlou.
Theodora’s imaginary return from Jardin Exotique to
Meroe starts from the first appearance of Katina who seems
to be one of “[Theodora’s] several lives”(pp. 278). The
reader learns that from a conversation which occurs in the
Jardin Exotique in which Katina expresses her boredom at
everything: “I must go home before I have quite forgotten”
(149). Soon after that, Theodora leaves the school and goes
home. This is significant particularly in that it provides
grounds for many critics to believe that all the actions in The
Aunt’s Story happen in Theodora’s mind due to her potential
for imagination (Beston 34).
So far we discussed Theodora’s childhood recollections of
Meroe, and how these memories created fear and hatred
towards the physical world. We are now turning to highlight
Theodora’s most important relationships and how “her
volcanic fire” thwarts these communions.
As aforementioned, images of a “volcanic hill” appear
frequently throughout the novel which are closely linked to
Theodora’s “burning fire”. Theodora possesses some
volcanic power which thwarts her potential for a creative
engagement with the other characters (Steven 82). Her first
communion starts with Frank, Fanny’s later husband.
When Frank indirectly expresses his feelings to Theodora,
she immediately fears her apartness with Meroe to the extent
that the walls begin to crumble in her imagination. That is,
we discussed earlier that Theodora’s identity is closely
attached to Meroe. This is because she possesses the same
qualities that Meroe has such as the black volcanic fire.
When Frank exposes his feelings to her, she feels threatened
as it reminds her of the childhood memory in the rose garden
when her mother tells her not to touch “the grub”, which we
explained earlier that it warns Theodora against the physical
world. Therefore, her “black volcanic fire” is likely to erupt,
as a means of protections:
{Frank} spoke thoughtfully now, not with the criticism
that other people's voices had for Theodora Goodman. So
that she wanted him to speak more. The blood in her stone
hands ran a little quicker, perhaps from fear also, that stone
will crumble. Not even Father could hold up the walls of
Meroë when it was time. So now she waited for Frank to
speak. (pp.83)
18
Asaad Faqe Muhamed: Significant Relationship in Patrick White’s The Aunt’s Story
It is clear that Frank initiates this interaction, but
Theodora’s feelings are repressed because she cannot enact
this potential to create a promising engagement and
collaboration ( Steven 85). The above scene invites us to a
negative interpretation. White seems to repeat the same
conservative belief that women's energies should be allowed
no viable outlet. A basic assumption of this literature in The
Aunt’s Story is that Theodora’s feelings are gathered in upon
themselves and lay burning inwardly, and even if they erupt,
they will be destructive as in the Jardin Exotic.
The first appearance of Theodora’s volcanic power occurs
during the shooting scene with Frank. When Frank tries to
shoot the hawk, Theodora’s “blood in her stone hands ran a
little quicker,” and she immediately remembers the “black
volcanic hill in Meroe” (83):
She remembered the red eye, and for a moment she
quivered, and the whole hillside, in some other upheaval of
mythical origin. She knew the white air, closer than a sheath,
and the whole cold world was a red eye (pp. 73).
The hawk’s eyes are red, and red is a basic colour of fire.
Thus, Theodora’s volcanic fire is associated with the hawk.
As a result of her inability to return Frank’s feelings, her
volcanic fire erupts which ultimately makes her shoot the
hawk down.
This reappears later during Huntly Clarkson’s
acquaintance. When Clarkson invites her to the shooting
gallery, Theodora outshoots him as she accurately targets the
clay ducks. When she returns home, Theodora’s volcanic
power erupts briefly at her mother:
'I believe you were born with an axe in your hand.' 'I do
not understand what you mean. Axes? I have sat here all the
afternoon. I am suffering from heartburn.'
Then it is I, said Theodora, I have a core of evil in me that
is altogether hateful (126).
At first, Theodora is angry at her mother because she
believes that it is all due to her mother she cannot find a man
of her own accusing her mother to have been “born with an
axe in her hand”, which is a clear indication to her childhood
memories. Her childhood environment which engendered
apprehension in her now makes her potential for a creative
engagement with Clarkson (Steven 65). However, soon after
that her anger erupts at herself because of her inability to take
a man of her own as she fails for the second time, after Frank,
in her sexual encounters. This can be good evidence that
White seems to have intentionally thwarted Theodora’s
creative collaborative ability.
It is worth noting that Theodora’s relationship with Huntly
Clarkson is vital in the novel because he seems to be the most
qualified person to participate in Theodora’s spiritual quest.
A number of critics argue that Theodora’s quest is ideal in
that no character can understand her. John and Mary Beston,
for instance, pithily argue that Theodora ends her relationship
with Clarkson because he lacks the qualities Theodora wants.
This is legitimate only if we look at the narrative through
Theodora’s lens, but if we tell the story through Clarkson, we
come to the conclusion that White has intentionally denied
the other characters a voice of their own. This invites us to
consider White a feminist, as many other critics do.
Karen Wearn, for instance, considers Patrick White a
feminist, particularly in The Aunt’s Story and A Fringe of
Leaves, on the grounds that he intentionally dismisses the
male characters (12-25). The problem with White and most
of the other feminist novelists of the first half of the 20th
century is single-mindedness. He, like what Doris Lessing
has done in The Fifth Child, has given full voice to Theodora
in the narrative but denied Huntly Clarkson a voice of his
own. The problem, thus, starts from here. Despite the fact
that Clarkson is somehow a materialistic man, he is, arguably,
qualified to be Theodora’s want-to-be knight, and he seems
to be the only male character in the novel to best understand
Theodora. However, he is ignored and failed. Laurence
Steven suggests that, “[White] toys with the implications but
that is all, and never does he seriously engage the problem”
(65). If we tell the story through Clarkson’s lens, we will get
to the conclusion that he is helpful to Theodora’s quest. This
can be seen in a number of scenes.
Clarkson, for instance, is the best character in the novel to
understand Mrs Goodman whom Theodora struggles to run
away from. This makes him closer to Theodor’s world. In the
first acquaintance with Mrs Goodman, Clarkson learns that
she is despotic and a rather self-assertive woman:
Mr Clarkson agreed, amiably, above his desk, which was
prosperous and broad, and at which he could already feel the
tyranny of Mrs Goodman aimed. He noticed that she was a
small, neat, hateful woman, with small, neat, buckled shoes,
and many rings. She sat in the light and kept her ankles
crossed. But her daughter sat in shadow, and drew with her
parasol on the floor characters that he could not read. (pp. 93)
The above scene is a powerful example which highlights
Clarkson’s understanding of Mrs Goodman. He clearly shares
Theodora’s belief that her mother is a “small, neat, hateful
woman, with small, neat, buckled shoes, and many rings.” It
does not mean that Clarkson is perfect, but he could be the
one Theodora desires as she admits that, “It would be very
easy, she felt, to allow the kindness, the affluence, the smoky
voice of Mr Clarkson to engulf” (pp. 93). This leads us to
conclude that Theodora ends the relationship with Clarkson
on no basis except for her natural fear of the physical world,
her volcanic fire which is “altogether hateful”.
Volcano is associated with fire which is usually a
dichotomous element in the literary works. On the one hand,
it could be the bringer of destruction and/or the symbol of
chaos and war; on the other hand, it might be the banisher of
darkness and an eternal love as in the case of Prometheus
who risked the wrath of the Titans to bring fire to man (Carl
66). In The Aunt’s Story, fire is destructive and the banisher
of hope and love. It is this fire which prevents Theodora from
a significant relationship. This destructive fire offers so much
information about Theodora. We learn through this fire that
Theodora’s problems are associated with hopeless sexual
frustrations.
Fire has components of red colour, and the hawk, which is a
frequent image in the novel, has “red eyes”. We explained
earlier that Theodora closely identifies her feelings with the
International Journal of Literature and Arts 2014; 2(6-1): 15-22
hawk which stands for her sexual feelings. The hawk and the
fire are, therefore, closely interrelated. Afroditi Panaghis
argues that the hawk and Theodora are identical (31). However,
it seems weak to identify the hawk with Theodora herself;
rather, it is a symbol of her feelings, sexuality in particular. If
we identify the hawk with Theodora herself, she should
commit suicide in the end because she shoots it down, while
with Frank. Neither of these happens in the novel. Instead, we
learn that Theodora “shoots” and “kills” her sexual feelings, as
she stays a spinster forever.
Furthermore, the shooting gallery with Clarkson recalls the
same hawk. As explained earlier, Clarkson seriously wants to
engage with Theodora in a courtship. Theodora, nonetheless,
stifles this opportunity by shooting the heads off the clay ducks.
This scene is significant because Theodora’s volcanic sexual
longings furiously erupt and cajole her into setting fire to the
Jardin Exotique because she can no more endure “her volcanic
fire”.
J. F. Burrows considers Theodora’s eruptive fire, particularly
when setting fire to the garden, the bringer of hope and the
banisher of darkness on the grounds that she finds final peace
in the end by destroying the garden. However, it is important
to point out that Theodora’s burning the Jardin Exotique is a
by-product of her fruitless relationships. Therefore, it is the
bringer of chaos and has destructive effects on Theodora’s
overall life to the extent that it drives her mad and sends her to
a mental institution.
Beyond its destructive quality, fire, in The Aunt’s Story, can
also be seen as an exquisite artistic element of romance which
Theodora possesses. Moraitis’s playing the cello is a good
example of this romantic and artistic appreciation.
The cello is of the violin family. Lawrence Kramer
associates the violin with “feminine desires” especially “in
figurative association” particularly when held close to the
chest (239). Similarly, in Walt Whitman’s famous poem “Song
of Myself”, the young man’s heart’s lament is romantically
coupled with the feminine cello (pp. 70). In The Aunt’s Story,
White has exquisitely portrayed Theodora’s feminine and
sexual desires to Moraitis, particularly in that when she
identifies herself with the cello that Moraitis plays:
She watched him take the 'cello between his knees and
wring from its body a more apparent, a thwarted, a passionate
music, which had been thrust on him by the violins. The 'cello
rocked, she saw. She could read the music underneath his flesh.
She was close. He could breathe into her mouth. He filled her
mouth with long aching silences, between the deeper notes that
reached down deep into her body. She felt the heavy eyelids on
her eyes. The bones of her hands, folded like discreet fans on
her dress, were no indication of exaltation or despair, as the
music fought and struggled under a low roof, the air thick with
cold ash, and sleep, and desolation. (pp. 105)
In this beautiful scene, White establishes himself as an
unparalleled imagist who exposes his heroine’s feelings in a
unique pictorial form. Theodora imagines herself to be the
cello between Moraitis’s knees, and she expresses her
astonishment at his music. Even, she imagines herself to be in
Moraitis’s body, “she could read the music underneath his
19
flesh”.
This particular scene portrays Theodora’s adulthood in
which her sexual feelings are hidden under a futile surface of
spinster aunthood. The eruptive volcanic fire burning inside
her is, as mentioned earlier, a metaphor for Theodora’s sexual
passion. Yet, she represses it due to her fear of the sexual
enjoyment. In the above scene, Theodora imagines Moraitis
“fill[ing] her mouth with long aching silence, between the
deeper notes that reached down deep into her body.” This is an
obvious lamentation for sexual engagement; the tactile images
are irrefutable evidence. However, this is happening only in
Theodora’s mind which, again, highlights White’s tendency to
separate the spiritual from the physical.
Moreover, in Moraitis’ playing the cello scene, Theodora’s
sexual longings are once again throttled because Moraitis, like
Theodora, lacks a creative power for a significant relationship.
He is even more spiritual than Theodora, as he is “prim” and
“pure” whose spirituality is so great that made him rise “above
the flesh” (pp. 105). Even the music Moraitis played, Theodora
laments, “was more tactile and [real] than the hot words of
lovers spoken on a wild nasturtium bed” (pp. 106). Moraitis’s
“rise above the flesh” foreshadows Theodora’s departure from
the pull of the flesh and human society (Riemer 26).
Moraitis’s playing the cello is a flashback to Theodora’s
early life when she predicts her abandonment of sexual
experience, which can best be explained in relation to her
created “several lives”, Katina Pavlou in particular (pp. 75).
While in boarding school, Theodora and Katina become
very close friends during which time a very important
conversation occurs which reveals many things:
"Have you ever been inside the tower, Miss Goodman?"
Katina Pavlou asked. And now Theodora felt inside her hand
the hand coming alive. She felt the impervious lips of stone
forming cold words. She dreaded, in anticipation, the scream
of nettles. 'No,' said Theodora, 'I have not been inside the tower.
I imagine there is very little to see.' 'There is nothing, nothing,'
Katina said. 'There is a smell of rot and emptiness'. But no less
painful in its emptiness, Theodora felt. "Still, I am glad," said
Katina Pavlou, speaking through her white face. "You know,
Miss Goodman, when one is glad for something that has
happened, something nauseating and painful that one did not
suspect. It is better finally to know. (253)
In this important conversation, White certainly plays on
words through a very intelligent use of symbolism. The tower
recalls Henry O'Brien’s The Round Towers of The Tuatha De
Danaans in which they represent the phallus (248). Similarly,
the tower Katina mentions is obviously a phallic symbol which
stands for sexual experience. Katina, who is Theodora’s mirror
or “physical life”, downgrades “the tower” because “There is
nothing, nothing,” but “a smell of rot and emptiness” and is
“no less painful in its emptiness”. Katina disillusions Theodora
by reducing sexual enjoyment to a “nauseating and painful”
experience. Again, after this scene Theodora’s destructive
volcanic power erupts as a result of her hopeless sexual
frustrations. This time she cannot control the fire inside her. As
a tempest, it is released and swept through the Hotel du Midi
which eventually destroys the Jardin Exotique and the people
20
Asaad Faqe Muhamed: Significant Relationship in Patrick White’s The Aunt’s Story
around it. This puts an end to Theodora’s “created several
lives” including Katina. It is perhaps the defining moment in
Theodora’s odyssey as she comes to realise that she is living in
an imaginary world which is why she destroys the Jardin
Exotique.
As the great philosopher David Hume argues, reality is truth,
and it is every manifestation of the truth which occurs within
us, and sometimes appears as if from nowhere (36). Theodora
accepts reality over illusion, “the created several lives”.
The destructive volcanic fire which “burns” both Jardin
Exotique and Theodora’s courtship and sexuality has a lot to
do with her childhood recollections in Meroe. A series of
flashbacks in the novel, particularly those pertained to the fire
and the volcanic hill, invite us to reconsider Theodora’s
innocent childhood life in Meroe.
One of Theodora’s most significant childhood events is the
man, who is known in the novel as “The Man Who Was Given
His Diner”. This man informs her that, “You'll see a lot of
funny things Theodora Goodman. You'll see them because
you've eyes to see. And they'll break you. But perhaps you'll
survive” (pp. 45). Indeed, after the man leaves Meroe,
Theodora begins to see many unusual things which almost
destroy her, but she miraculously survives.
It is obvious that one of the components of fire is light. J. E.
Cirlot states that Jupiter’s lightning and thunderbolts in the
ancient Roman mythology symbolise chance, destiny and
providence (6). Lightning, in The Aunt’s Story, is associated
with Theodora’s volcanic fire. It is closely linked to her early
memories particularly the dream in which a lightning struck
her.
At night, early in the novel, Theodora dreams about a tree
under which she is asleep which is struck by a lightning but
miraculously survives. The tree recalls Tennyson’s famous
poem Mariana. John Stanly has associated the tree with the
phallus, the visual representation of the distant unfriendly lover
“who both haunts and eludes” Mariana (214). Similarly,
Theodora’s dream is obviously associated with her sexual
experience:
There was the night, for instance, somewhere early in the
summer, when she woke in bed and found that she was not
beneath the tree. She had put out her hand to touch the face
before the lightning struck, but not the tree. She was holding
the faceless body that she had not yet recognized, and the
lightning struck deep. Breaking her dream, the house was full
of the breathing of people asleep and the pressure of furniture.
She got up. It was hot in the passage. (pp. 80)
The lightning here is a reference to sexuality, as the tree is
an obvious phallic symbol. It is also clear that Theodora cannot
“touch the tree and the faceless body”. Hence, we learn that
actually Theodora desires to experience sexuality but “her
destructive fire” prevents her. This is evidenced by two tactile
scenes: Theodora’s desire to go with the Man Who Was Given
His Diner and Moraitis’ playing the cello.
When the Man Who Was Given His Diner leaves Meroe,
Theodora desires to go with him because he can offer her “the
warmth“ she needs as a complement to her spiritual quest:
But inside the man's silence, Theodora could feel his
closeness. The sleeve of his coat touched her cheek. The sleeve
of his coat smelt of dust, and mutton fat, and sweat, but it
stroked her, and she bit her tongue. 'Yes,' said the man, ' "it's as
good a way of passing your life. (38)
On this occasion, Theodora’s spirituality is much stronger
than her physical strength which eventually prevents her from
enjoying her sexuality. The problem with White is that he does
not allow Theodora’s sexual potential to be realised. That is, he
intentionally separates spiritual reality from physical
experience.
The great critic, Frank Leavis argues that spiritual reality
cannot be authentic without physical experience (70-85).
White’s overemphasis on spiritual reality is the same repetition
of what T.S. Eliot has done in his plays particularly The Family
Reunion (Sarkar 169). Leavis criticises Eliot on the grounds
that spiritual reality cannot “be a reality for us, or anything but
a conventionally empty phrase, unless apprehended out of life,
in which we are, and in terms of our human livingness” (181).
Interestingly, White seems to approve this unintentionally
when Theodora learns that part of her laments over a desirous
of “human touch” of which she is deprived:
For the pure abstract pleasure of knowing, there was a price
paid. She remembered the Man Who Was Given His Diner, the
moment of the bridge, which was the same pure abstraction of
knowing. But the exaltation was cold without the touch of
hands, the breathing and stirring and walking of the tree in the
snow. (103)
This is a sexual epiphany. Theodora is able to recollect all
the defragmented sexual scenes altogether. She remembers the
moment when she desired to go with the Man Who Was Given
His Diner because the man could cure her “burning face” and
“sweating palms” (26).
It is imperative to shed some light on White’s perspective on
reality. White believes that only one’s own existence and
reality can be realised. This can be evidenced by Theodora’s
uncertainty of the external world. White places emphasis on
spirituality and ignores physicality. By doing that, White
breaks the long established philosophy of dualism in which, as
Rene Descartes argues, there is an interaction between
spirituality and physicality; they cannot be separated because
without one another the system is false (193).
In The Aunt’s Theory, White creates a dichotomy in which
spirituality is an entirely different plane from the physical
nature which, according to Western Philosophy, as Isaac Levi
argues, is false because physical elements are a necessary
complement of spiritual development (339). However, there is,
some hope in White’s dichotomy which is important to be
discussed. In the end of The Aunt’s Story, Theodora goes mad
which is in itself a criticism of those who, like Theodora,
ignore physical experience; they are mentally ill with deep
emotional disturbance.
However, this interpretation seems to be weak because we
learn that Theodora is always rescued miraculously from
physical world. Such physical world is represented by Frank,
Huntly, and Moraitis whom Theodora ignores on the grounds
that they threaten her spiritual quest. White rescues his heroine
through a number of ways the most important of which is
International Journal of Literature and Arts 2014; 2(6-1): 15-22
images of bones.
Bones in The Aunt’s Story may represent many things.
However, the wisest interpretation might be the one which is
related to Theodora’s defensiveness. Tamara Prosic associates
bones with permanence and protectiveness from the outside
world (124). Theodora’s volcanic fire which destroyed the Hotel
du Midi is now spent which means she has no more weapons to
protect herself from “the external reality”. Therefore, White has
created extra weapons in order for Theodora to protect herself
forever, as bones can last for a long time.
From the very beginning of the novel, fragmented images of
bones can be seen. We learned that Theodora often identifies
herself with Meroe, and one of the noticeable images
connected to Meroe is bones; that Meroe is surrounded by a
skeleton of bones. So is Theodora. She has “cages of bones”
(pp. 173).
White’s intelligence lies in that he releases Theodora’s
volcanic fire in the end of the Jardin Exotique because bones
are subjected to melting when exposed to fire. Theodora’s
volcanic fire is not only a destructive force to the outside world
but to herself as well, as she almost destroys herself in the
Hotel Du Midi. Therefore, Theodora releases her fire lest it
destroys her.
Bones stay with Theodora until the end of the novel because
they offer her an internal protection. Interestingly, after the
Jardin Exotique, White creates a more peaceful fantasy for
Theodora which finds itself in Holstius because no more
external threats are expected. However, she is sent to a mental
institution where she rests forever. She is safe, but lost without
home, friends, and family. She chooses a total emotional
retreat and becomes schizophrenic. Holstius’s final
conversation might be the most important evidence for us to
consider Theodora’s quest a failure:
'I expect you to accept the two irreconcilable halves. Come,'
he said, holding out his hand with the unperturbed veins. She
huddled on the boards, beyond hope of protection by
convention or personality, but the cloth on the legs of Holstius
had the familiar texture of childhood, and smelled of horses,
and leather, and guns. (277)
Holstius tells Theodora that her life has been a failure
because she was incapable of reconciling physicality with
spiritual world (although the “halves” may refer to joy and
sorrow, flesh and spirit, illusion and reality, or life and death,
which are not my focus). White seems to be rigid in his
philosophical dichotomy of spiritual development and physical
nature which he believes them to be “irreconcilable”. Despite
Olive Schreiner’s philosophical claim that, “When your life is
most real, to me you are mad,” Theodora’s final destination in
the mental institution may prove White’s false dichotomy.
3. Conclusion
The Aunt’s Story is arguably Patrick White’s most
successful and detailed study of the metaphysical world,
particularly its portrayal of identity as open to a
transcendental dissolution. It can be regarded as dismissive
of the physical world. The Aunt’s Story is primarily
21
concerned with the protagonist’s attempt to attain some sort
of epiphany, particularly when she yields to moments of
close relationships with other characters and the landscape.
However, this communion is thwarted on the grounds that it
is a threat to her spiritual world.
Theodora’s spiritual odyssey coincides with the
disintegration of her socialised identity, her attempt to
destroy “the great monster self”, her physical development
(pp. 128). Her sterile communion with other characters such
as Frank, Clarkson, and Moraitis is a good example of
White’s tendency to undervalue the flesh and the body. He
thwarts Theodora’s significant collaboration in a number of
ways the most important of which is disqualifying her
relationships from any significance other than private on the
grounds that they are figments of her own imagination. This
does not mean that Theodora lacks a potential for a creative
and fruitful collaboration. Rather, she fails to enact it due to
her “black volcanic fire” which, according to White, protects
her spirituality from the external, physical world. Eventually,
she becomes mad and schizophrenic and ends her odyssey in
a remote place without friends, family, and home.
The Aunt’s Story is open to a number of interpretations;
therefore, it is unwise to give priority to the metaphysical
reading and dismiss others. It has many doors through which
the reader can enter into Theodora’s world. I have opened
only one door of discussion which is a metaphysical one.
There are, nevertheless, many other doors to be opened from
a psychological and feminist reading through to an existential
perspective.
References
[1]
Asals, Frederick 1997 The Making of Malcolm Lowry's Under
the Volcano. The University of Georgia Press: Georgia, USA
[2]
Baker, Gordon, Katherine Morris 1996 Descartes' Dualism.
Routledge: London, UK
[3]
Beatson, Peter. The Eye in the Mandala: Patrick White: A
Vision of Man and God. London: Paul Elek, 1976.
[4]
Burrows, J. F. 1970 Jardin Exotique: The Central Phase of The
Aunt's Story, reprinted in Ten Essays on Patrick White, G. A.
Wilkes fed. Sydney, Australia.
[5]
Cirlot, J. E. 1962 A Dictionary of Symbols. Routledge &
Kegan Paul Ltd. New York, USA.
[6]
Damrosch, Leopold 1989 Fictions of Reality in the Age of
Hume and Johnson. The Board of Regents of the University of
Wisconsin System: USA
[7]
Herring, Thelma 1966 Self and Shadow: The Quest for
Totality. Oliver and Boyd: London, UK
[8]
Beston, J. 1975 The Several Lives of Theodora Goodman: The
'Jardin Exotique' Section of Patrick White's The Aunt's Story.
Journal of Commonwealth Literature 9.
[9]
Isaac, J. R. 1997 The Covenant of Reason: Rationality and the
Commitments of Thought. Cambridge University Press: New
York, USA.
22
Asaad Faqe Muhamed: Significant Relationship in Patrick White’s The Aunt’s Story
[10] Laurence, Steven 1989 “Dissociation and Wholeness in
Patrick White'sFiction". Wilfred Laurier University Press:
Canada
[18] O'Brien, Henry 1898 The Round Towers Of Ireland Or The
History Of The Tuatha-De-Danaans. W. Thackery & Co.:
London, The United Kingdom.
[11] Kerényi, Carl 1963 Prometheus: Archetypal Image of Human
Existence. Princeton University Press.
[19] Prosic, Tamara 2004 The Development and Symbolism of
Passover Until 70 CE. T. & T. Clark International: London,
UK
[12] Kramer, Lawrence 1997 After the Lovedeath: Sexual Violence
and the Making of Culture. The University of California Press:
London, England
[13] Kiernan, Brian. “The Novels of Patrick White.” The Literature
of Australia. Ed. Geoffrey Dutton. Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1976. 462.
[14] Lawson, Alan 1994 Patrick White: Selected Writings.
University of Queensland Press, Australia
[20] Riemer, A.P. “Eddie and the Bogomils – Some Observations
on The Twyborn Affair.” Southerly 40.1 (1980): 12-29.
[21] Sarkar, Subhas 2006 T.s. Eliot The Dramatist. Atlantic
Publishers and Distributers: Delhi, India
[22] Stasny, John F. 1979 Victorian Poetry (Volume 17, Number 3).
West Virginia University: USA
[15] Leavis, F. Raymond 1975 The Living Principle "English" as a
Discipline of Thought. Chatto and Windus, London: USA
[23] Stylistic and Linguistic Means in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's
"The Yellow Wallpaper". Druck and Bindung, Norderstedt:
Germany. 2007
[16] Loney, Douglas 1982 Theodora Goodman and the Minds of
Mortals: Patrick White's The Aunfs Story. English Studies in
Canada, vin, 4, p, 483
[24] Wearn, Karen 1989 A Feminist Reading of Two Patrick White
Novels: ‘The Aunt’s Story’ and ‘A Fringe of Leaves’.
Murdoch University Press: Australia.
[17] Morley, Patricia A. 1972 The Mystery of Unity: Theme and
Technique in the Novels of Patrick White. McGill-Queen's
University Press.
[25] Whitman, Walt 1993 Leaves of Grass. Random House, Inc.,
New York, USA
[26] White, Patrick 1982 The Aunt's Story. London