Theistic Existentialism in the Fiction of Tim Winton

THEISTIC EXISTENTIALISM IN THE FICTION OF TIM WINTON by Roie Thomas B.A., M.Ed. Submitted to the School of English, Journalism and European Languages, University of Tasmania in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts University of Tasmania (May 2007) ii This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for a diploma or degree by the University or any other tertiary institution and, to the best of my knowledge and belief , no material previously published or written by another person, except where due acknowledgement is made in the text of the thesis. This thesis may be made available for loan and limited copying in accordance with the Copyright Act 1968. iii Thesis to be submitted by Roie Thomas in May 2007 Theistic existentialism in the fiction of Tim Winton. Abstract This survey of Winton's fiction will claim that religious (or theistic) existentialism is the foundational weltanschuuang of his work. I intend to investigate the extent to which the ideas of Soren Kierkegaard shadow characters in their move towards an ideal; that is, a personal connectedness with their concept of God. This thesis attempts to demonstrate that Winton's fiction reflects aspects of Kierkegaard's existential continuum, his Stages on Life's Way (1845), in its call to existential ‘authenticity’. Both authors reject the conventional rigidity practised by much institutionalised religion and endorse a personalised connectedness between individuals and God. Theistic existentialism is defined in the Foundational Chapter, including a distinction between this worldview, atheistic existentialism and traditional theism. Tim Winton’s work is justified generally in relation to this theistic existentialism. My methodology is as follows: Kierkegaard’s three-tiered continuum Stages on Life’s Way with my adjustments (sub-categories) will be defined in the Foundational Chapter alongside a brief introduction to other existentialist thinkers whose ideas are consulted within the thesis. iv A second chapter will demonstrate the way in which characters in one novel can be categorised according to the three main Kierkegaardian stages: ‘The Aesthetic’, ‘The Ethical’ and ‘The Religious’. The novel Shallows (1984) encapsulates all the stages within its characters and serves as a conceptual introduction to them. Chapter Three will contain an analysis of three characters who belong to sub-groups of the Aesthetic. Collectively here they are labelled ‘Destroyers’, including The Demonic and Nihilist manifestations, since they destroy others or themselves respectively (or both). These sub-categories of my own labelling are defined. Chapter Four, entitled ‘Wanderers’, foregrounds characters who also belong to the Aesthete’s realm of Unconscious Despair, living in the Temporal. They are not so actively injurious as their Destroyer counterparts, however. Their lostness is characterised by a sense of alienation, displacement and ennui. They do not participate or act in any meaningful manner and have not ‘chosen’ their despair. In ‘Searchers’ (Chapter Five) the characters are grounded in ‘The Ethical’ domain in Kierkegaard’s Stages on Life’s Way. They have consciously chosen their despair and try to self-Authenticate within their personal contexts. Often they are acutely aware that something is still missing in their lives, despite their individualised affirmative action. These characters are poised for epiphany, however unlikely they may seem. Grace is manifest in their lives in very personally realised ways and these characters usually accept this, if often after a long resistance. The ‘Homecomers’ detailed in Chapter Six are those characters who experience a personal relationship with God. This is an individual relationship which is never replicated in another’s context. Each character in this category comes to an inductive connection, not a v deductive, top-down rapport. It is a bond based on mutual love and respect, fashioned for each person, in full recognition that this state, while held aloft by Kierkegaard as ‘ideal’ and superior to its forerunners, does not presuppose perfection in its subjects. vi Dedication For my dear family: Meg and Robyn, Peter, Gordon and Joan. Heartfelt thanks to you all for unwavering support and love. I couldn’t have done this without you. And for you, Chris Wareham, for all the books (that I absolutely promise to return one of these days, only slightly dog-eared) and for your vast philosophical knowledge, happily shared with me over numerous cups of chamomile. Acknowledgements Special thanks to a wonderful supervisor, Dr CA Cranston, for valuable insights, inspirational scholarship and encouragement. Also to Dr Andrew Peek, for editorial help and cheerful endorsement and to Dr Libby Lester for her painstaking corrections! Thanks to Dr Narelle Shaw and Dr Kim Atkins, for early supervision and to the School of English, Journalism and European Languages, University of Tasmania, for providing office space, facilities and conference assistance. vii CONTENTS Title page………………………………………………………………...........i Abstract ………………………………………………………………….......iii Dedication and Acknowledgements ……………………………………........vi Chapter 1 Foundational Chapter …………………………..………………1 Chapter 2 Shallows……………………………………………………………… 17 Chapter 3 Destroyers …………………………………………………….. ..45 Chapter 4 Wanderers………………………………………………………..57 Chapter 5 Searchers…………………………………………………………78 Chapter 6 Homecomers…………………………………………………….. 96 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………..108 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………110 viii “It was a tremendous help to me to discover a few years ago Aldous Huxley’s description of the two different ways in which religion can be approached. He speaks first of ‘the religion of immediate experience’ − a religion, in the words of Genesis, of “hearing the voice of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day”, the religion of direct acquaintance with the divine’ [...] It sends shivers, doesn’t it? […] Then Huxley contrasts this with [that] which he calls ‘the religion of symbols, the religion of the imposition of order and meaning upon the world through […] systems and their manipulation; the religion of knowledge about the divine, rather than direct acquaintance with it.” − John Cleese ix x xi 1 Chapter 1 Foundational Chapter This study will investigate the work of Tim Winton from a foundation of theistic existentialism. Though Winton has publicly professed a Christian belief, the representations of such in his work are unconventional. This thesis will demonstrate a correlation between the lives of Winton’s characters and characteristics of people at Soren Kierkegaard’s three realms of existence: The Aesthetic, The Ethical and the Religious, otherwise known as Stages on Life’s Way (1845). For literary purposes, reflecting the personal journeys of Winton’s characters, these ‘stages’ have been relabeled ‘Destroyers’, ‘Wanderers’ (both categories of the Aesthetic realm), ‘Searchers’ (Ethical) and ‘Homecomers’ (Religious). This Foundational Chapter will first define the philosophical framework, then proceed to demonstrate the way in which the framework extends and deepens a reading of Winton’s fiction. Winton’s work, if investigated chronologically, shows a progression from a fairly orthodox approach to the problem of despair, with the implied ‘solution’ lying within a recognisably Protestant doctrine, as in An Open Swimmer (1982) and That Eye the Sky (1986). As Ort Flack recounts in That Eye the Sky, “At the end of breakfast we did the Lord’s supper like Henry Warburton’s been doing with us since we got baptized last week […] ‘Drink all of it’, [Mum] said, pouring some sherry in my tea mug. There were tea leaves floating. ‘It’s for forgiving sins’ ” (98). Later, the reader can note the inclusion of realistic mysticism in The Riders (1994) as in sensory experiencing of super-sensory beings: “Scully smelled them, the riders and their horses. He recognized the blood and shit and sweat and fear of 2 them” (377). Aboriginal spirituality sits alongside Protestantism in Cloudstreet (1991): “As part of the spiritual realm, the Aboriginal man communicates with Fish – maybe through conversations, telepathy or old-fashioned writing, [he] in a sense, is an angel” (Rutherford 73). More recently Dirt Music (2000) depicts its characters’ more secular search for enlightenment and redemption. As Luther Fox recognises, “He’d always wanted to be found, even if he didn’t know it. [Georgie] had found him once. And that was in the dark. She’d just have to find him a second time” (416). This signposts the theme of redemption that takes on greater significance further into the novel. While remaining faithful to a Christian ethic (for example, Dirt Music unquestionably explores the Exodus tenet of the sins of the fathers being visited upon the sons), the narrative voice is influenced by other spiritual possibilities alongside, it appears, a recognition that the possibilities may not need to be mutually exclusive. As Winton observes, “Everything has its place in communicating the grace of God” (Salter 10). Certainly his characters reflect this belief in their erratic and unlikely paths to self-Authentication which are nonetheless legitimate and compelling. Existentialism in its theistic form was chosen as a fitting basis for this scrutiny of Winton’s fiction, since it is characterised by manifestations of human despair (conscious and unconscious) and the double bind in which such despair places humanity. The quest to overthrow theological nihilism and bland orthodoxy by the

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