Patrick White

In Other Words: Homosexual Desire in the Novels of Patrick White Valerie Beattie Ph.D. University of Edinburgh 1996 Abstract To date there has been no comprehensive critical analysis of the impact of Patrick White's homosexuality on his fiction. By investigating the centrality of homosexual desire on a linguistic, stylistic, and thematic level in five of his novels, this thesis shifts the critical perspective on White, and argues that homosexual desire specifically, and sexuality in general, are fundamental to his textual practice. The five novels examined in this light are: The Aunt's Story, Voss, The Solid Mandala, The Twyborn Affair, and Memoirs of Many in One. The general categorization of White's writing technique as 'modernist' is problematized in the thesis by relating the stylistic features of his fiction to an analysis of his historical and socio-cultural background. The effects of the medical, political, and legal systems in both Australia and England on the issue of homosexuality are shown as having a direct impact on both the subject matter and the style of White's fiction. Additionally, the thesis demonstrates that far from being an impediment to White's artistic talent, the hostility in Australia towards homosexuality was for him imaginatively productive. As part of the exploration of this area, a review of the politics of past interpretations of White is included in the discussion of each work. As the thesis is concerned with the interaction of the literary and the political, it engages closely with the concerns of queer theory, feminist theory, and psychoanalysis. The thesis argues that because they explore the issues of sexuality and gender in a noticeably complex and enlightened manner, White's novels are not only a significant addition to the field of gay studies, but also to gender studies. Spanning almost four decades, the novels examined enrich our understanding of the social, historical, and literary construction and regulation of homosexuality in both England and Australia, and inspire new ways of interpreting the elaborate and innovative interaction between writing and homosexual desire. Illustrations Fig.l Roy de Maistre. Figure in a Garden (The Aunt) (1945). Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. 30a Fig. 2 Sidney Nolan. Central Australia (1950). Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. 37a Fig.3 Sidney Nolan. Carron Plains (1948). Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. 37a Fig.4 Sidney Nolan. Dry Jungle (1949). Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. 37b Fig. 5 Emanuel Philips Fox. The Arbour (1911). National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. 116a Acknowledgements I would like to thank the University of Edinburgh for awarding me the Vans Dunlop Scholarship to research my Ph.D. In the process of writing this thesis many people helped with their critical advice and friendly support. In particular I want to thank Trudi Tate for her theoretical insights, stimulating critical comments and personal encouragement, and Ian Donaldson for his insightful criticisms and commitment to the study. Thanks also to Ian Duffield for invaluable suggestions on reading material, and to Garry Wotherspoon for providing me with essential information on the history of gay sexuality in Australia. Penny Fielding offered much needed assistance on the last chapter and was, along with Trudi Tate and Ian Donaldson, a important source of support. Thanks to Kevin McGinley for the illuminating discussions on allegory. My appreciation also goes to Heather Johnson, the great niece of Roy de Maistre, who helped me sort out some confusions regarding the painting, Figure in a Garden (The Aunt); to the Art Gallery of New South Wales for permission to reproduce Roy de Maistre's painting and the paintings of Sidney Nolan; and to the National Gallery of Victoria for permission to reproduce Emanuel Philips Fox's The Arbour. I also want to thank a number of other people who offered important assistance to me in various ways in the final stages: Lorna Davidson, Harry Dickinson, Jan Adams, Roger Savage, and Kate Marshall. On a more personal level my gratitude to Nicholas Bennett is inexpressible. The congenial working atmosphere which he provided and his unwavering support has been the most valuable to me. And the sincerest of thanks to my dear parents: as with the last thesis, this one would have been impossible without you. Declaration I declare that, except where otherwise indicated, this thesis is entirely my own work and that no part of it has been submitted for any other degree of qualification. Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Declaration Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 2 The Aunt's Story: more than a woman 29 Chapter 3 Voss: a 'queer courtship' 57 Chapter 4 The Solid Mandala: closet dynamics 84 Chapter 5 The Twyborn Affair: returning to the scene of the 'crime' 114 Chapter 6 Memoirs of Many in One: revelations of disguises past 147 Chapter 7 Conclusion 166 Epilogue 169 Bibliography 184 Chapter 1 Introduction All the characters in the books are myself, but they are a kind of disguise. - Patrick White Speaks 1 A pragmatic nation, we [i.e., Australians] tend to confuse reality with surfaces. - Flaws in the Glass 2 In his autobiography, provocatively entitled Flaws in the Glass (1981), and more recently in David Marr's edition of his letters, Patrick White (1912- 1990) attributes his writing talent to his homosexuality: 'If I am anything of a writer it is through my homosexuality, which has given me additional insights'.3 David Marr reports that in a conversation with Jim McCelland on the same subject, White said: 'My homosexuality gives me all the insights that make me a great writer.'4 And in Flaws in the Glass, he elaborates on the complexity of perception bestowed upon him by his sexuality; more specifically, the psychic roles in which he became involved through it: In my case, I never went through the agonies of choosing between this or that sexual way of life. I was chosen, as it were, and soon accepted the fact of my homosexuality. In spite of looking convincingly male I may have been too passive to resist, or else I recognised the freedom being conferred on me to range through every variation of the human mind, to play so many roles in so many contradictory envelopes of flesh. (pp. 34-5; my italics) It is with this complex exploration of appearances, role playing, and an elaborate sense of the interaction between identity and sexuality in White's fiction that this thesis concerns itself. Homosexual desire specifically, and sexuality generally, occupy no fixed or easily attained 1 From 'In The Making' (1969), in Patrick White Speaks, ed. Paul Brennan and Christine Flynn (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1992), p. 23. 2 Patrick White, Flaws in the Glass:A Self-Portrait (1981; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983), p.128. Subsequent citations of this work are given parenthetically. 3 Patrick White to Geoffrey Dutton (17.ix.80), in ed. David Marr, Patrick Wlzite:Letters (London: Jonathan Cape, 1994), p. 537. 4 McCelland informed Marr of this, June 19 1987. See David Marr, Patrick Wlzite:A Life (London: Jonathan Cape, 1991), p. 581, and note 647, p. 709. location in his work; instead, each novel poses sexuality as a substantial and valuable part of one's identity because it always elides attempts at rigid classification. Sexuality is thus a problem for White, and it is his fascinating and often enigmatic representations of the interaction between sexuality, subjectivity, and society that make his novels such important contributions to gender and gay studies. With the exception of David Marr's 1991 biography there has to date been no indepth critical analysis of the impact of White's homosexuality on his fiction.s Addressing a significant and far-reaching lack in White criticism, this thesis undertakes to investigate the centrality of homosexual desire on a linguistic, stylistic and thematic level in five of White's novels: The Aunt's Story (1948), Voss (1957), The Solid Mandala (1966), The Twyborn Affair (1979), and Memoirs of Many in One (1986). The publication of Marr's biography, and more recently his edition of White's letters, makes now a fitting and stimulating time to re-evaluate White's work in the light of the information provided by these publications, and to probe its relevance for critical interpretations. The novels discussed here were chosen because they represent especially provocative examples of White's literary engagement with homosexual desire. They depict less a movement from disguise to revelation than an intricate synthesis of the two, and one that is anchored in an incisive awareness of how homosexual, and indeed, heterosexual desire, is always structured in relation to history, culture, class, race, and dominant ideologies. And importantly, they span White's writing career, affording an overall perspective of the changing face of homosexuality from the publication of The Aunt's Story in 1948 to Memoirs of Many in One in 1986. The fact that White's work is later than most modernism, yet sustains the same acute focus on individual consciousness and subjectivity, is evidence of the continued relevance of this literary concept to writers concerned with the difficulties intrinsic to the adoption of sexual and social identities. Fundamental to the epigraphs quoted above are notions of the complex interaction of the individual psyche with the phenomenological world, a key theme White shares with modernist S Rick Wallach has written on critical reactions to White's work, and on the homophobia endemic to David Tacey's criticism in, 'On the Limits of Archetypal Criticism', Antipodes, 6: 2 (1992): 133-8. 2 fiction. Virginia Woolf, for example, claims that modernist fiction has as its raison d' etre an attempt to come closer to life, and to preserve more sincerely and exactly what interests and moves [authors], even if to do so they must discard most of the conventions which are commonly observed by the novelist.

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