In the Novels of Margaret Mahy and Maurice Gee

chapter 17 Katabasis “Down Under” in the Novels of Margaret Mahy and Maurice Gee

Elizabeth Hale

Two writers of fiction for young adults have dominated the New Zealand literary scene in the past few decades. Margaret Mahy and Maurice Gee are well- known, both at home and abroad, for their intelligent, sensitive, and dramatic fantasy, historical, and science fiction novels, which bring exciting action to the shores of this small country in the Southern Pacific Ocean. New Zealand consists of three islands, and is located in the very far South. Along with Australia it is affectionately known as the Antipodes, or “Down Un- der.” The first human inhabitants, Polynesians, are thought to have migrated to the islands in the thirteenth century, forming the seeds of what became the Maori culture. They called the islands Aotearoa, or Land of the Long White Cloud. The first Western sighting of Aotearoa was in 1642 by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman; the Dutch called the place Nova Zeelandia. The name became Anglicised after James Cook visited the islands in 1769–1770. European migra- tion began in the nineteenth century, first by missionaries and then by set- tlers, in an organised scheme of land purchase and farming. The country was claimed as part of the British Empire, following the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840; it has remained in the Commonwealth, and the bulk of its population is of Brit- ish origin. The population is currently around four million people. It has strong political ties to Australia, the uk, and the United States, and is a leader in the Pacific region, with links to Asia as well. New Zealand literature reflects those ties and those influences, and is particularly concerned with engaging with them by incorporating them, reforming them, confronting them, in various literary shapes and forms. And classical material is part of that engagement, providing a tie to the myths, language, and narrative structures that underlie much European culture. New Zealand is seismically active. It is part of a submerged continent that lies over the borders of the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates, which are colliding at a rate of 40 mm a year; It is prone to earthquakes, and significant parts of the land were formed by volcanoes—the cities of Dunedin and Christ- church are located on or near extinct volcanoes. Auckland, the largest city, is built on or around seven volcanic peaks, including the dormant volcanic island, Rangitoto. Because of the seismically active nature of the land, New

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Zealand is often known as the “shaky isles”. There have been two catastrophic earthquakes in the past century, one in 1931 in Napier in the North Island, and a series of earthquakes in Canterbury and Christchurch in the South Island from 2010 onward. New Zealanders are brought up to be aware of the fragility of the land—its cracks and fissures, and the instability and danger that lurk beneath the surface. New Zealand’s geographical location “down under” and its geological for- mation, whereby seismic activity brings the “Underworld” closer to the surface, provide storytellers with many opportunities. One set of opportunities comes from its resonance with the classical narrative motif of “katabasis,” or the journey to the Underworld. The term comes from the Greek, meaning a trip downward—usually from the interior of a country to the coast, but in epic convention it refers to the journey to and return from (as anabasis) the Under- world. The katabasis is often part of the hero’s quest: heroes such as Achilles, Aeneas, Jesus Christ, Dante, or Gandalf make a journey into the Underworld, either to consult the ghosts of the dead and wisdom of the past, or to confront and overcome demons and death. In myth, Orpheus descends to Hades to at- tempt the rescue of Eurydice; Ceres is more successful in rescuing her daughter Persephone from the clutches of Hades. The term has application to literal descents, as in a hero’s quest. It is also used, literally or metaphorically, to express a number of related concerns to do with family, society, and the individual. In terms of the individual, katabasis also has psychological applications—the protagonist’s confrontation with the demons of her/his past, or of her/his own fears or weaknesses of character. As a narrative shape in the hero’s journey or stage in the protagonist’s development as an individual, katabasis has resonance in adolescent fiction, much of which is devoted to novels of coming of age and growth. The katabases that can be seen in operation in the young adult novels of Margaret Mahy and Maurice Gee combine the geographical and the emotional: an awareness of the fissures in the New Zealand landscape, from which evil can emerge, or into which protagonists must journey, connects with the individual descents into darkness (emotional, familial, societal) of the young protagonists. Margaret Mahy (1934–2012) was New Zealand’s most successful writer of children’s and young adult literature. From the 1960s on, she produced an enor- mous number of titles, including stories, poems, readers, learning media, non- fiction, and television scripts. In the 1970s, her work reached an international audience. For some time, Mahy wrote material that was deliberately unspecific in setting and theme, judging that if she was to succeed as a full-time writer of children’s literature, she needed to reach as wide an audience as possible.