The religious quest of Patrick White

Abstract

In this study I explore the emergence in Patrick White of a myth which embodies the primal concerns of human beings, as opposed to the artificial, merely habitual or conventional, I argue that in this process he returns us to religious imperatives. I show how Australia is the setting for this myth and is charged with a special imaginative importance. White's quest is seen as an attempt to make new or revivify perceptions in an environment uncongenial to over-domestication and which relativizes artificial attempts at order and system. This leads me to examine White's treatment of art and iconoclasm; and I look at the theme of sacrifice in his work, as that which strips away in order to reconstitute afresh. I devote a chapter to the 'crucifixion' scene in White’s novel Riders in the Chariot, trying to point to a redemptive stability underlying White's work and suggested by this novel. In conclusion, I briefly place White's work within the context of a post-modern world.