224 CONCLUSION This literary study and close account of her social philosophy has demonstrated that the novelist, Eleanor Dark, was also a vigorous social protester and moralist, both concerned with pressing contemporary problems and with their psychological origins, and bent on showing in her fiction a close connection between political forces and individual lives. It has been made clear in this critical treatment .:hat, with a romantics revolutionary turn of mind, she was determined to open her readers eyes to so many social injustices. These were all too often perpetrated by mediocre leaders, and yet the people, in their ignorance and apathy, were hardly aware of them. To illustrate this she created a series of idealistic, independently thinking characters who set out to right social wrongs by exercising heroic personal integrity, by being true to their own consciences, and by establishing ideals which would enrich, rather than constrict, both the individual and society as a whole. The study has shown, however, that Dark always emphasised the need to put theory into action, and to curb simplistic idealism with a measure of lived practicality. There was presented in Chapter 2 the writers perception of human existence as a progression or journey, with her questing protagonists energetically engaging with all aspects of life as they struggled toward the goal of social harmony and the desired realisation of personal potential. Throughout, there has been critical emphasis upon the novels impressive celebration of life, and I have endeavoured to show that the vitality of Darks daring protagonists became a means of judging the behaviour of others, as she contrasted them with those lesser and more timid characters who refused Ito participate willingly in the mortal contest. The study has sought to establish the novelists deep conviction and illustrated contention that the real obstacles to all social and moral progress were put in place by a faltering human will, and by fallible human opinions, convictions and prejudices. The airr has thus been to record her firm, if fictional, protests at this situation. In Chapter 3 there is registered Darks objection to stultifying social ideals which forced potentially free spirits into predetermined roles. She sternly criticised the prevailing restrictive conventions which denied women the sexual freedom granted to men, and 225 compelled most, if they were to satisfy their undeniable physical needs, to accept the domestic role of the economically dependent wife-mother. Darks own society had made an unshakeable ideal of permanent marriage, and the novelist exposed the psychological damage suffered by those men and women who found themselves trapped with incompatible partners. This chapter has recorded, also, her objection to the treatment of those who, through mental or physical disabilities, were excluded from the flow of normal living, and thus became misfits in a society which valued uniformity above all. Chapter 4 has considered her forceful indictment of all Australian class division, showing how, in the First Settlement, the determination of the elitist group to seclude themselves from the convicts, the emancipists and the poorer free settlers hindered the colonys progress. In her own contemporary world Dark was shown to question the moral values of a large group of wealthy and powerful citizens who were able to regard their underprivileged fellows with complete detachment and lack of compassion, exploiting them as often as they chose. The writers protest at the failure of her countrys legislators to provide ordinary people with enlightening education experience has been discussed in Chapter 5. There it was demonstated that Darks indignation at the lack of sex-education and the widespread ignorance regarding sensible health care was matched by her disapproval of an authoritarian public education system which inhibited original thinking in its students, forced uniformity upon them, and gave them no clear understanding of the social and political forces which were shaping their lives. Chapter 6 treated of her remc nstrance that, in a world ruled by so- called reason, world leaders had adopted the dangerous habit of misusing both science and technology. Thus there has been teased out the fictions indictment of those who used science, in the form of eugenics, to interfere with natural laws; of that aspect of ndustrialism which, by harnessing all their physical effort and mental potential to machines, made of human beings mere impersonal units who derived no satisfaction from their labour; and of the ruthless materialism which evaluated the worth of human beings by their more visible worldly possessions. The chapter has shown, too, how Darks early pioneering and philosophical concern at the ecological despoliation 226 caused by chemical sprays and juggernaut earth-moving machinery would and did deepen into her bitter condemnation of the use of technology in waging ever more barbaric wars. Her detestation of modern wars and her denunciation of the greed, racism and shallow nationalism which caused them, has been treated in Chapter 7 as well as the disgust with which she regarded jingoistic leaders who promoted patriotism as a means of buttressing their own power, and the industrialists who profited from the sale of munitions and the engines of war. Here, too, Darks bitter indictment of racial discrimination is recorded in the account of the war between the European settlers and the Australian Aborigines. The present study has also suggested that, beyond the mere plot lines, implicit in the novels was the strong conviction that, on the journey, all the questers must use as energising agents certain spiritual qualities - such as psychic integration, sustaining love, the power of the artists creative imagination, and an affinity with the natural world - each and all proper means of boosting the moral courage necessary for the surmounting of this worlds obstacles. Chapter 8 has illustrated the novelists impatience with those who failed to exercise all the aspects of the psyche and Chapter 9 rebuked those who would jettison less orthodox supportive companionship either by pursuing the false ideal of romantic love or by succumbing to the superficial satisfaction of a purely sexual relationship. In Chapter 10 there is some codification and explication of Darks censure of a poorly educated Australian populace which, blinded by the allure of mass entertainment, not only failed to appreciate the worth of serious artists, but forced many of them to leave the country in search of valid recognition. From the time of the First Settlement, instead of encouraging a harmonious bonding with the land, governments had allowed ignorant, greedy settlers and industrial entrepreneurs to plunder it, and Chapter 11 has dealt with Darks moral castigation 01 such narrow visioned leaders. Chapter 12 then identifies Darks vision of the true human goal, the building of a harmonious society in a gentler world in which the individual had some real chance of reaching full potential, and conveys her conviction that to do this was our only possible alternative to Armageddon. Throughout the study it is argued that Dark always manifested a 227 reader-challenging romantic sensibility, and, as well as positing her vision of life as a personal quest, I have also drawn attention to her other positivist thought. This personal and authorial stance included: her insistence on the importance of feeling in a world increasingly ruled by intellect; her distaste for contemporary industrialisation and concomitant materialism; her sympathy for the oppressed and for the individual at odds with society; and her utopian vision of a genuinely caring and sensitive political system. Included, also, in her romantic armoury were her faith in art as a force capable of enriching both the human being and life itself, and her attitude toward nature which corresponded to the intuitive assumption of the divinity ever present in, and burgeoned forth by, the natural world. While I have emphasised this pervasive romantic sensibility, I have sought to demonstrate, also, Darks streak of practicality. This she exhibited so effectively in her insistence that Nigel Hendons idealistic plan for his utopian society was fundamentally sound, and in her Roger Blairs certainty that any hope for a more economically equitable world must be backed up by unbiased investigation into societys divisive practices. She made the young doctor, Valerie, modify not only her dream of healing humanity when she found that many of her patients rejected her ministrations, but also her ideal of romantic love in favour of a love which promised to be practical and sustaining. It has been seen that Dark refused to idealise the country at the expense of the city when she had her character, Tom Drew, concede the practical difficulties of rural life. Similarly, although Gilbert enthused on the vitality of Sydney, his creator again refused to idealise the city at the expense of the country. Her compassionate presentation of wars victims - such as Bennilorig, Nigel Hendon and Colin Drew - and her scathing attacks on powerful warmongers undercut any perhaps still lingering modern notion of technological war as a romantic contest between heroic warriors. Instead, she had caused her questioning protagonists to take their own practical steps toward understanding the psychological causes of war in an effort to prevent future tragedies. It has become obvious that, throughout her oeuvre, against a