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Satire and Parody in the Novels of Patrick White

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Satire and Parody in the Novels of Patrick White Contrivance, Artifice, and Art: Satire and Parody in the Novels of Patrick White James Harold Wells-Green 0 A thesis presented for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Communication, University of Canberra, June 2005 ABSTRACT This study arose out of what I saw as a gap in the criticism of Patrick White's fiction in which satire and its related subversive forms are largely overlooked. It consequently reads five of White's post-1948 novels from the standpoint of satire. It discusses the history and various theories of satire to develop an analytic framework appropriate to his satire and it conducts a comprehensive review of the critical literature to account for the development of the dominant orthodox religious approach to his fiction. It compares aspects of White's satire to aspects of the satire produced by some of the notable exemplars of the English and American traditions and it takes issue with a number of the readings produced by the religious and other established approaches to White's fiction. I initially establish White as a satirist by elaborating the social satire that emerges incidentally in The Tree of Man and rather more episodically in Voss. I investigate White's sources for Voss to shed light on the extent of his engagement with history, on his commitment to historical accuracy, and on the extent to which this is a serious high-minded historical work in which he seeks to teach us more about our selves, particularly about our history and identity. The way White expands his satire in Voss given that it is an eminently historical novel is instructive in terms of his purposes. I illustrate White's burgeoning use of satire by elaborating the extended and sometimes extravagant satire that he develops in Riders in the Chariot, by investigating the turn inwards upon his own creative activity that occurs when he experiments with a variant subversive form, satire by parody, in The Eye of the Storm, and by examining his use of the devices, tropes, and strategies of post-modem grotesque satire in The Twyborn Affair. My reading of White's novels from the standpoint of satire enables me to identify an important development within his oeuvre that involves a shift away from the symbolic realism of The Aunt's Story (1948) and the two novels that precede it to a mode of writing that is initially historical in The Tree of Man and Voss but which becomes increasingly satirical as White expands his satire and experiments with such related forms as burlesque, parody, parodic satire, and grotesque satire in his subsequent novels. I thus chart a change in the nature of his satire that reflects a dramatic movement away from the ontological concerns of modernism to the epistemological concerns of post-modernism. Consequent upon this, I pinpoint the changes in the philosophy that his satire bears as its ultimate meaning. I examine the links between the five novels and White's own period to establish the socio-historical referentiality of his satire. I argue that because his engagement with Australian history, society, and culture, is ongoing and thorough, then these five novels together comprise a subjective history of the period, serving to complement our knowledge in these areas. This study demonstrates that White's writing, because of the ongoing development of his satire, is never static but ever-changing. He is not simply or exclusively a religious or otherwise metaphysical novelist, or a symbolist-allegorist, or a psychological realist, or any other kind of generic writer. Finally, I demonstrate that White exceeds the categories that his critics have tried to impose upon him. Acknowledgements I am greatly indebted to a number of people for without their encouragement and guidance I would never have begun let alone completed this thesis. Thanks must go to Professor Satendra Nandan, my primary supervisor, for generating and indeed stimulating my interest in Patrick White's fiction, for passing on his love for that fiction and for literature and writing more generally, and for his unfailing and indeed inspirational support and encouragement. I should also like to express my gratitude to Professor Bruce Bennett of University College, ADFA, for drawing my attention to the extent and importance of Patrick White's engagement with history and for his criticism generally. Thanks also go to Associate Professor Susan Lever of the same institution who contributed to this thesis in manifold ways, but particularly in terms of clarifying my approach to White's work. I am also greatly indebted to a number of my fellow students, former teachers, friends, andlor colleagues at UC, particularly Jim O'Gorman, Carol Drew, Rob Schaap, Annabel Beckenham, Cathy Hope, Adam Dickerson, Bethaney Turner, and Sue North for their criticism but also for simply being around, so to speak, when this thesis seemed a bit much. In addition, I commend the staff at the Mitchell and ADFA Libraries for the many considerations extended to me during my research. Finally, I especially thank MS Maureen Bettle, my secondary supervisor, for stimulating my interest in literature, for enhancing my knowledge of this most nuanced and important means of communication, and for her prompt, considered, unstinting, unfailing, and insightful feedback, particularly as this thesis neared completion. Table of Contents Introduction Chapter One History and Satire in The Tree of Man and Voss Chapter Two Satire and Religion in Riders in the Chariot I Chapter Three I Parody and Satire, Art and Artifice in The Eye of the Storm p. 139 Chapter Four i Going Back to Go Forward: Degenerative, Grotesque Satire in The Twyborn Afiair p. 184 Conclusion p. 226 Bibliography p. 235 Introduction Patrick White's novels typically involve long, complex narratives of epic proportions, they encompass a variety of modes and styles of writing, and they reflect a range of attitudes and philosophies. They are thus generally patient of interpretation and so his critics have been able to adopt highly focussed approaches to his work. These approaches have produced many interesting and insightful critiques but also a good deal of critical dispute. What appears to have lain behind these approaches was uncertainty. White's critics were unsure of how to respond in any holistic way to a writer who did not fit any one category and who wrote against the social realist paradigm that still dominated Australian Literature in the 1950s when White first came to prominence through the burgeoning success of The Tree of Man in the United States and Britain. The adoption of one kind of highly focussed approach or another quickly became something of a tradition in White criticism so that his novels have been subjected to a vast number of specific, narrow analyses, most notably those produced by various syrnbolist-allegorical, social- realist, modernist, Marxist, religious, and psycho-analytic approaches. The net effect of this is that those aspects of his novels that White's critics have chosen to scrutinise have been considered in isolation rather than as parts that contribute to a greater, novelistic whole. Although White's novels have been subject to these various approaches, it is the religious interpretation of his work that has achieved orthodox status. There are novels which foreground religious subjects and themes - one may think of the epiphanies and glimpses of eternity in The Tree of Man and Voss, or White's drawings on Judeo-Christian religious tradition for Riders in the Chariot, or the Eastern mysticism and spiritualism that infuses The Solid Mandala. This religious content supports the orthodox conception of 1 White as a metaphysical and ultimately religious writer, but his subsequent treatment of religious subjects and themes in his later novels provides no such support. White comes to satirise, in The Twyborn Affair for example, his earlier serious treatment of spirituality, religion, and religious tradition, suggesting that treatment to have been ridiculous because pretentious and portentous. In this study, I focus upon the satire in White's work, showing it and what may be called 'the satiric' to constitute a rich and developing vein from The Tree of Man to Three Uneasy Pieces, his last prose fiction. Behind this study is my concern that most critics largely overlook or choose to ignore this satire and such related forms as the irony, the burlesque, and the parody that occur and recur in the novels I have selected. Those critics who do consider the presence of these subversive forms may discuss the ironic play and the social satire of Voss, or the grotesque parody of Shakespeare's King Lear in The Eye of the Storm, or the playfully ironic comedy of manners that unfolds in the opening scenes of The Twyborn Affair, but they do not see these kinds of passages as part of a pattern, as the manifold and recurrent effects of White's developing satire. The growing presence of this often exaggerated, intemperate satire in conjunction with gross or obscene parody seems hardly compatible with the orthodox conception of White as an essentially metaphysical and ultimately religious writer. Yet he has been most widely celebrated as such. This study shows that White, after his permanent return to Australia, increasingly turns to satire's instruments - to irony, paradox, parody, oxymoron, hyperbole, sarcasm, and burlesque - to make hls subjects ridiculous so as to elicit attitudes of amusement or scorn towards them. I argue that this turn to satire is a function of White's ongoing response to Australian history, society, and culture and, in the case of The Eye of the Storm (1970), The Twyborn Affair (1976), and The Memoirs of Many in One (1982), of his response to his own creative activity.
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