AustLit

'Throughout his novels, Patrick White addresses himself to questions fundamental to human existence and understanding. His stance is prophetic and the mode of his narrative is appropriately poetic. In the formulation and presentation of his images, White unifies the subjects of his fiction and the language in which they are rendered. The potential of discursive prose inherent, or at least traditional in the novel, is revalued in White's creative effort. Essentially his novels are explorations of character, from which he extrapolates the implications arising from his vision of humanity as inhabiting a world rich in covert significances that may only occasionally be glimpsed. White's major characters do not substantially develop in the sense of becoming essentially different in the course of the novel in which they are presented. Instead their growth is a process of increasing awareness and understanding of what they are, the world in which they have their being and their place within that world. White's novels are, as he has said, attempts 'to come close to the core of reality, the structure of reality'. The exposition and development of the themes growing from the attempt - the essential solitariness of the self and its paradoxically resultant union with all human life; the necessity of thorough engagement with every aspect of experience; the possibility of illuminated understanding; and the relation of humanity to divinity - are realized in the dynamic function of his presentative language and especially of his imagery . The imagery in White's novels is seen in this thesis to function according to the two basic principles of recurrence and centrality. The recurrence of images both informs the novels with their poetic texture and clarifies the development of situation and character within them. In the episodic structure of the novels, images establish coherence and continuity by conditioning the episodes and by linking them at a connotative level. Thus in relation to episodes in the novels, imagery may be seen to function in terms of both the principle of recurrence and that of centrality. The scale of reference of a central image ext ends fr om single episodes to the entire novel. In the first three chapters of the thesis, I discuss the proposition that White's implementation of these two principles produces a stylistic embodiment of theme which results in immediacy of exposition. Yet the novels are more than the sum of a number of interlocking aesthetic structures and in the final chapter of the thesis, I argue that the thematic essence of White's works is figured in the motifs which have, in the course of his creative effort, established themselves as predominant. In White's presentation of the image of the human body, of the image of the material world, and of the imagery of revelation and understanding, the growth of his characters is both recorded and enacted. Such a critical approach obviously demands a sustained close reference to the primary texts and I have tried to support my argument throughout the thesis with detailed analysis. As a major novelist of the twentieth century, White has expressed a vision of humanity in the world which repays the most careful and precise attention. I do not claim to have exhaustively covered every aspect of his style, or even of his imagery, but I hope that my study will contribute to an understanding of his works.' (Thesis description)