August 2010 PROTECTION of AUTHOR
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THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY PROTECTION OF AUTHOR ’S COPYRIGHT This copy has been supplied by the Library of the University of Otago on the understanding that the following conditions will be observed: 1. To comply with s56 of the Copyright Act 1994 [NZ], this thesis copy must only be used for the purposes of research or private study. 2. The author's permission must be obtained before any material in the thesis is reproduced, unless such reproduction falls within the fair dealing guidelines of the Copyright Act 1994. Due acknowledgement must be made to the author in any citation. 3. No further copies may be made without the permission of the Librarian of the University of Otago. August 2010 A World Like This: Existentialism in New Zealand Literature Dale Christine Benson A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Otago, Dunedin New Zealand 31 March 2000 ii Let us insist again on the method: it is a matter ofpersisting. The Myth ofSisyphus, by Albert Camus iii Abstract A World Like This: Existentialism in New Zealand Literature Literary existentialism has evolved unevenly in New Zealand since the late-nineteenth century. In this thesis I will define and trace the pre-existentialism of the early pioneers and settlers, which originally emerged as a Victorian expression of their experiences in an unpredictable new environment. Then I will describe how during the 1930s, 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s some of their descendants modified their world-view with ideas popularly associated with French literary existentialism, including notions about the individual's freedom and responsibility to act in an unrnediated universe. Finally, I will conclude that references to existentialism are relatively rare in contemporary New Zealand literature because in a predominantly secular society the struggle to survive in a godless, indifferent universe has been absorbed into New Zealand writers' continuing preoccupation with the necessity of fellowship. IV Prefatory Note Generally I have followed the grammatical and bibliographical forms recommended in the Style Book: A Guide for New Zealand Writers and Editors. Except when quoting an author who marks dialogue with single inverted commas or who uses no speech marks at all, I have used double quotation marks to signify conversation. For a quotation within a quotation, I have used single inverted commas. When dealing with bibliographic information not covered by the Style Book, such as the formatting of a film reference or of unpublished information, I have relied on Kate L. Turabian' sA Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 5th ed. v Acknowledgements My husband, Brendan Murray, has supported me through years of postgraduate study. I do not know how I could have managed without him. Equally essential have been the kindness, humour and intellectual integrity of my supervisor, Professor Lawrence Jones. To my friend Lisa Matthewson, whose ordinary and extraordinary magic helped save my life, Nicholas Henderson-Clark, whose companionship makes cheerfulness easy, Nicola Cumming, whose roses I will always remember, Robyn Bade, whose kindness I will never forget, John Dolan, whose intelligence and courage inspire, Martin Andrew, helpful from the beginning, and my sisters and parents Susan, Elizabeth, Christine and Robert Benson, whose care has been, is, and will continue to be, much appreciated - thank you all very much. For over a decade I have been lucky to learn from, and with, English Department staff and students at the University of Otago. And thanks to the staff at Dunedin Hospital, whose names are recorded in no particular order in a long list that is, I fear, incomplete: Drs. Steph Farrand, Charles Beresford and Charles Newhook -- as a walking testament to their skill, I could also say a lot about their dedication and humanity. Elaine Chisnall, Delwyn Tautori, Stephen Burnell, Steph Halford, Fiona Thompson, Cassandra Stornaway, Therese Duncan, Chris Inglis, Deb Cunningham, Jane McColm, Suzi Rishworth, Rosie Thomson, Dianne Whiteley, Carol Reid, Deb Hannah, Janene Olier, Joanne McAnally, Caroline Whinnui, Nora Vanwesterhoven, Chris Harrington, Sue Chambers, Dr. Shubair, Prue Wilson, Alyson Nelson, Janine McCaughan, Sarah Markham, Chris Elliot, Mary Marwood and Lauren McCormack -- I could detail all the reasons I have to be grateful for their care, but this is probably not the place. A summary will have to do: fine professionals all, their kindness, generosity and conversation have made persisting a lot easier. vi Table of Contents Introduction .................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1 The Early Man Alone ................................................................................... 8 Chapter 2 John Mulgan's Man Alone: Between Two Myths .................................... 28 Chapter 3 Penguin New Writing, Frank Sargeson and the Existentialist Mood ..... 78 Chapter 4 Dan Davin and the Development of an Existentialist Sensibility ......... 124 Chapter 5 Men Alone in the 1940s and 50s .............................................................. 153 Chapter 6 Greville Texidor: "From point to point you are travelling in a void" ................................ 181 Chapter 7 Marilyn Duckworth: When Existentialism Was in the Air .................. 207 Chapter 8 The Happy Man Alone ............................................................................. 227 Conclusion ................................................................................................. 264 Bibliography .............................................................................................. 266 1 Introduction Existentialism is a scarecrow only for imbeciles. Although it is, in fact, an error in classification, it wrongs no one.1 Existentialism has seldom been studied at the tertiary level in New Zealand as other than a feature of Modem and Post Modem trends in European and American literature, and it would be impossible to isolate a pure example of that elusive philosophy in New Zealand's literature. Even so, it is possible to trace the history of the New Zealand fiction that anticipates or responds to existentialist concepts, especially in relation to the literary topos of the Man Alone. Beginning with a general definition of the word existentialism, I will go on to describe New Zealand's version of what became, during the middle of the twentieth century, an increasingly popular literary movement. Because so few of the writers I consider were professional philosophers, I have chosen not to criticize their narratives as philosophical treatises. Thus, while I do sometimes point to the source of ideas adapted to New Zealand conditions, I have avoided philosophical jargon. Instead I have described the existentialist mood that some writers connected with New Zealand have evoked, over the years, in some of their narratives. Any definition that can stretch around the Christian and atheistic extremes of existentialism, including such diverse thinkers as Saint Augustine (one of the earliest precursors of the existentialists), Blaise Pascal, Soren Kirkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Jaspers, Martin Heidegger, and, more recently, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus (whose fiction and philosophical works popularly represent modem existentialism), will have to be very elastic indeed. Even so, there is a concern for the existence of the self conscious individual that connects the writing of all the men listed above - a concern equally evident in a range of New Zealand narratives .. William Barrett in Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy explains that while Plato and Aristotle posed the question What is man?, Saint Augustine, in his Confessions, asked Who am I?. With this self-conscious question, Saint Augustine altered the focus of Western thinking from that of the objective third person to that of the subjective first person. Barrett calls this a decisive shift: The first question presupposes a world of objects, a fixed natural and zoological order, in which man was included; and when man's precise 1 Serge Doubrovsky, "The Ethics of Albert Camus", in Camus: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Germaine Bree (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice Hall, 1962), p. 71. 2 place in that order had been found, the specifically differentiating characteristic of reason was added. Augustine's question ... stems ... from an acutely personal sense of dereliction and loss, rather than from the detachment with which reason surveys the world of objects in order to locate its bearer, man, zoologically within it. Augustine's question therefore implies that man cannot be defined by being located in that natural order, for man, as the being who asks himself, Who am 1?, has already broken through the barriers of the animal world. 2 Barrett also maintains that modern Western history, from the Middle Ages to the present, has been profoundly affected by the decline of religion and the rise of science in the West.3 Walter E. Houghton, in The Victorian Frame of Mind, 1830-1870, quotes from J. S. Mill's diary entry for 13 January 1854 an example of the resultant mid-Victorian doubt: Scarcely any one, in the more educated classes, seems to have any opinions, or to place any real faith in those which he professes to have .... It requires in these times much more intellect to marshal so much greater a stock of ideas and observations. This has not yet been done, or has been done only by very few: and hence the multitude