This study guide addresses both the context and the content of Patrick White’s classic Australian novel Voss. Under “context” it summarises the novel’s reception,its place in the author’s life, and its inspiration in the expeditions of the lost explorer Ludwig Leichhardt. Under “content” the guide deals with five layers of meaning that are evident both in individual passages and in the novel’s overall design. These are: the physical or plot layer; characterisation; the emotional layer; the moral layer; and the metaphysical or spiritual layer.

CONTEXTS

1a. Author

Patrick White was born in London into the Australian squattocracy on 28 May 1912. Following training as a jackeroo, a degree in French and German language and literature at Cambridge University, time spent with friends in France and Germany, and war service in Egypt, White and his life-long partner, Manoly Lascaris, settled in Sydney in the early 1960s. Between 1939 and 1986 White’s intense commitment to his writing produced twelve novels, in addition to plays, poetry and short stories. First published in London or New York, White’s novels have been translated into most European and Asian languages. From early in his career he was recognised as an author of international stature, and in 1973 received the Nobel Prize for literature, to date the only Australian author to be so honoured. White’s influence on post-war Australian writing and on novelists such as Thomas Keneally and Thea Astley was considerable. He died in Sydney on 30 September 1990.

More detailed outlines of White’s life are available online: for example, search for Patrick White, author, at www.austlit.edu.au. I recommend that you read White’s illuminating autobiography, Flaws in the Glass: A Self-Portrait (London: Jonathan Cape, 1981), and David Marr’s equally illuminating biography, Patrick White—A Life (London: Jonathan Cape, 1991). See http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Search/Home for photographs and images of White.

1b. Voss and Leichhardt

White’s model for Johann Ulrich Voss is the explorer, Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt (1813-1848?), a legendary figure in Australian history. As a young, impoverished scholar at the universities of Berlin and Göttingen, Leichhardt studied languages, philosophy, biology, botany, geology and medical science purely because he loved knowledge, and without taking out a degree. People nevertheless recognised his learning by conferring on him the honorary title of “Dr.”

Leichhardt’s Expedition, 1844-45

Leichhardt arrived in Sydney in 1842, eager to expand European science in his chosen fields of knowledge by exploring the new continent. After solitary journeys in the Hunter Valley, and between Newcastle and Moreton Bay, Leichhardt gathered an exploring party that sailed from Sydney to Brisbane on 13 August 1844. Moving inland, “the expedition left Jimbour, the farthest outpost of settlement on the Darling Downs, on 1 October. Two of the party turned back and on 28 June 1845” John Gilbert was killed and Roper and Calvert speared in an attack on Leichhardt’s camp by Aboriginals whose women had been molested by the expedition’s trackers. “The remaining seven reached Port Essington on 17 December 1845, completing an overland journey of nearly 3000 miles (4828 km)” (Australian Dictionary of Biography http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020090b.htm).

Leichhardt’s Journal

Leichhardt’s Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia from Morton Bay to Port Essington, a Distance of upwards of 3000 Miles, during the Years 1844–1845. (London: T. & W. Boone, 1847) is a classic exploration story, and the foundation for many of the events in Voss. Chapter 9 narrates the night-time attack.

In Voss, White builds an inspired literary superstructure over the facts of the expedition and Leichhardt’s personality as it emerges from his writing. The following notes that I made after reading the Journal some years ago gives an idea of its contents:

This is a detailed, informative and clearly written account in the tradition of professional exploration journals. Leichhardt gives latitude and longitude, describes land formations, river and creek flows, and uses both scientific and common terminology for mineral deposits, plants and animals. Despite this, the journal does not take shape as a parade of learning. When there is something which Leichhardt does not understand, he points out precisely where his knowledge ends and speculation begins. He also explains his own inner psychology, as in the interesting account of his dreams (265–6), the inner dynamics of his party’s relationships, and the daily tasks performed by each member. There are a few passages of self justification, such as the following, which also conveys Leichhardt’s sense of God’s special protection:

Many unpleasant remarks have been made by my companions at my choice of camping places; but, although I suffered as much inconvenience as they did, I bore it cheerfully, feeling thankful to Providence for the pure stream of water with which we were supplied every night. I had naturally a great antipathy against comfort-hunting and gourmandizing, particularly on an expedition like ours; on which we started with the full expectation of suffering much privation, but which an Almighty Protector had not only allowed us to escape hitherto, but had even supplied us frequently with an abundance—in proof of which we all got stronger and improved in health, although the continued riding had rather weakened our legs. This antipathy I expressed, often perhaps too harshly, which caused discontent; but, on these occasions, my patience was sorely tried. (235)

Leichhardt is grateful to the patrons of his expedition, and allocates their names to landscape features discovered. He writes confidently of future sheep farming in the Burdekin basin and further west. His journal gives lively accounts of meetings with Aborigines, some of whom he records as friendly, and others as fearful or hostile. He lists artifacts found abandoned in an Aboriginal camp on the Lynd (279). His account of the killing of Gilbert and spearing of Roper and Calvert, soon after the expedition had left the Mitchell River, is lucid and detailed (308–12). The expedition finally reached the Gulf on 5 July:

The first sight of the salt water of the gulf was hailed by all with feelings of indescribable pleasure, and by none more than by myself; although tinctured with regret at not having succeeded in bringing my whole party to the end of what I was sanguine enough to think the most difficult part of my journey. We had now discovered a line of communication by land, between the eastern coast of Australia, and the gulf of Carpentaria: we had travelled along never failing, and, for the greater part, running waters: and over excellent country, available, almost in its whole extent, for pastoral purposes. The length of time we had been in the wilderness, had evidently made the greater portion of my companions distrustful of my abilities to lead them through the journey; and, in their melancholy conversations, the desponding expression, “we shall never come to Port Essington,” was too often overheard by me to be pleasant. My readers will, therefore, readily understand why Brown’s joyous exclamation of “Salt water!” was received by a loud hurrah by the whole party; and why all the pains, and fatigues, and privations we had endured, were, for the moment, forgotten, almost as completely as if we had arrived at the end of the journey. (318-19)

When, on 7 July, an Aboriginal man chanced to wander into the expedition’s camp, and climbed a tree in an effort to escape, Leichhardt rejected advice to shoot him, but induced him to depart by withdrawing his men (321–3). In the context of Gilbert’s death nine days before, and the suffering from their wounds endured by Roper and Calvert, Leichhardt’s attitude is conspicuously rational and compassionate. He later cultivated the friendship of Gulf tribes, taking note of their food sources, cooking and water-carrying methods.

Associated with Leichhardt’s journal, which “must have been in every saddle bag as the flocks of sheep followed his tracks to the Burdekin valley” (Bell 54), was the diary which the botanist of the expedition, John Gilbert, kept until his death on Cape York. Gilbert’s diary and letters associated with the expedition were unknown until Alec Chisholm discovered them in England in 1938. Chisholm’s subsequent book cast doubt on Leichhardt’s efficacy as expedition leader, including his dealings with Aborigines, but Colin Roderick and others ably defended Leichhardt’s reputation, in a controversy that is not yet resolved.

Leichhardt’s Expeditions, 1846-48

After returning to Sydney by sea, Leichhardt planned to cross Australia from the Darling Downs to the west coast, and then to follow the coast south to the Swan River settlement. After several false starts, the exploring party of seven whites, including Leichhardt, assembled on the Darling Downs early in 1848. By 3 April they had reached McPherson’s station, Cogoon. “After moving inland from Cogoon the expedition disappeared and no evidence showing conclusively what happened to it has been found” (A.D.B.). Over the next and in the present century, many groups and individuals searched for traces of Leichhardt and his expedition, but few “Leichhardt” finds have been confirmed as authentic. This unsolved and haunting mystery of Australian exploration gave White limitless scope for imagining the fates of the explorers in Voss.

Some of the online images of Leichhardt, especially Isobel Fox’s pencil sketch of 28 May, 1846, match White’s descriptions of Voss, the first of which introduces him as: “the shabby stranger, with his noticeable cheekbones and over-large finger joints” (12). You might like to explore more detailed connections by reading Leichhardt’s Journal http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/l/leichhardt/ludwig/l52j/index.html.and other records of his expeditions in relation to Voss, though this is a major undertaking. For further discussion, see Irmtraud Petersson. “Leichhardt and Voss: The Changing Image of a German Explorer,” in Manfred Jurgensen and Alan Corkhill, eds. The German Presence in Queensland over the Last 150 Years. St. Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 1988: 313-25.

1c. Reception of Voss

Voss, which was the “breakthrough work” in White’s writing career, captured the imagination of its readers when first published in 1957. The jacket design for the first edition was an original painting by White’s friend Sidney Nolan.

Understandably given the density of his writing, White gave up after trying to write a screenplay for Voss, but the novel has inspired poems by other writers, such as the Queensland poet, John Blight. Most notably it inspired Voss: An Opera in Two Acts, with libretto by David Malouf, and music by Richard Meale. First performed before the Queen by the Australian Opera at the Adelaide Festival Centre on 1 March 1986, the opera was performed again in 2009 as part of “The Voss Journey”—four days of events, seminars, concerts and films inspired by the novel, in a program which won the Canberra Critics Circle Award.

An AustLit search on the title produces a list of 130 works, mostly of criticism and other commentary http://www.austlit.edu.au. Many of these trace connections between Voss and Christian and other religious traditions, between Voss and international texts about a journey such as Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and between Voss and stories of salvation or damnation, such as Goethe’s Faust.  Although this Study Guide will refer to critical works as they become relevant, my main purpose is to analyse the novel in a way which will assist and encourage reading. After three or four attempts to interpret Voss spread over many years, I can now see that it both illuminates human experience and addresses eternal moral and spiritual questions.

CONTENTS

In Voss the omniscient third-person narrative perspective shifts fluidly among the characters and endows most of them with mental and emotional lives. Prose that is richly textured and packed with meaning gives the reader access to both the superficialities and the inner depths of the characters’ experience. Voss doesn’t respond to superficial or speed reading, but rewards pleasurable savouring and contemplation. A reader should also try to set aside stereotypes and expectations fostered by popular media, such as those relating to romance and adventure. The love relationship between Voss and Laura Trevelyan is profoundly original, and Voss’s journey has little in common with adventure stories. Leichhardt supplied the exploration narrative. In White’s novel the exploration is deeper, wider, and higher.

The Multi-Layered Prose of Voss: Microcosm

We can appreciate the multiple layers in the prose of Voss by analysing the following passage in Chapter 8:

The country round them reduced most personal hopes and fears until these were of little account. An eternity of days was opening for the men, who would wake, and scramble up with a kind of sheepish respect for their surroundings. Dew was clogging the landscape. Spiders had sewn the bushes together. And then there were those last, intolerably melancholy stars, that cling to a white sky, and will not be put out except by force.

After breakfast, which was similar to other meals, of salt meat, or of meat lately killed, with the tea they made from scum of waterholes, or from the same stuff brought in on canvas, Voss, attended by Judd, would take readings from their instruments, and attempt to assess their current position. Judd would bring out from their cloths those trembling devices in glass and steel and quicksilver. Judd was the keeper of instruments, Voss indulging his subordinate’s passion with the kindness of a superior being. He himself would sit with the large notebook upon his knees, recording in exquisite characters and figures, in black ink, the legend. Sometimes similarly black, similarly exquisite spiders replete from their dew-feast, would trample in his hair, and have to be brushed off. These small insects could affront him most severely. By this time the air was no longer smelling of dew; it had begun to smell of dust. Men were buckling girths, and swearing oaths through thinner lips. As the sun mounted, the skin was tightening on their skulls. Some of them winced, and averted their eyes from those flashing instruments with which Voss and Judd professed to be plotting, in opposition to Providence. The sceptics would ride on, however, because they were committed to it, and because by now their minds and limbs had accepted a certain ritual of inspired motion.

So they advanced into that country which now possessed them, looking back in amazement at their actual lives, in which they had got drunk, lain with women under placid trees, thought to offer their souls to God, or driven the knife into His image, some other man. (Patrick White. Voss.  London: Vintage, 1994:194)

• Plot or Physical Layer—Outward Actions, Dialogue and Descriptions

From the explorers’ perspective, this passage describes the expedition’s morning preparations in a dry stage. It brings into play the senses of sight, taste, smell, and touch: “the skin was tightening on their skulls.”

• Emotional Layer

The explorers feel the Australian landscape as hindrance: “Dew was clogging the landscape. Spiders had sewn the bushes together.” Still shining at dawn, the “last, intolerably melancholy stars…will not be put out except by force.” The “flashing instruments” used by Voss and Judd to plot their course dazzle the other explorers’ eyes. Notice the poetic texture of these descriptions, which are typical of this novel. The sentences convey more than facts—they call on the imagination; they suggest, and their meaning is ambiguous more often than fixed. Sometimes the passage tumbles over into symbolism, e.g. what might the spiders “trampling” Voss’s hair symbolise? Recurrent descriptions, especially, invite interpretation as symbols: “By this time the air was no longer smelling of dew; it had begun to smell of dust.”

• Character Layer

The passage conveys the emotional distance between Voss, described ironically as “a superior being,” and the others. It also hints at Judd’s leadership potential, in his “passion” for the instruments of navigation. Judd’s concerns go beyond himself, into care for the whole group. Furthermore, the party divides into two groups: believers, who regard navigation by science as showing mistrust in Providence; and sceptics, who saddle up and ride on like automatons, although even these have “accepted a certain ritual of inspired motion.”

• Moral Layer

The description drills down into moral concerns, e.g. Voss’s pride: “These small insects could affront him most severely;” and the last paragraph quoted, which lists sins and virtues—as traditionally defined—in the explorers’ lives before the journey began.

• Metaphysical or Spiritual Layer

Finally, the prose of Voss opens up repeatedly to the deepest metaphysical level of human experience, i.e., the words point beyond themselves to that which can’t be expressed—the transcendent or mystical ground of being. This is a sustained concern of White’s novels. Voss’s expedition either is from the beginning, or later becomes for most of its members, a quest as much for self-knowledge and enlightenment as for scientific knowledge and colonial conquest. An ambiguous phrase near the beginning of the quoted passage captures this sliding of physical expedition into spiritual quest: “An eternity of days was opening for the men….” This conveys the tediousness of the morning routine, but also implies that the men are no longer earth-bound or bound to time—each step they take into the heart of Australia is a step further into transcendence. The last short paragraph of the quoted passage expands on this contrast between the explorers’ past mundane lives and the spiritual adventure that is opening before them.

Summary

This analysis supports my contention that while Voss demands sensitive and repeated reading, it massively rewards the reader for such commitment. White’s depiction of the complex texture of human life is truthful in a way that challenges the superficiality of most of the stories offered by the popular media and constantly and widely consumed. In adventure fiction, romances, computer games, film and television, the focus is restricted to repetitive or formulaic events and characters. But if you look honestly at your own daily experience, you’ll see that it matches the layers that we have discerned above in the passage from Voss. Moment by moment, our experience is indeed physical, emotional, moral and spiritual.

Voss: Macrocosm 

While so much meaning is present in Voss‘s every paragraph, it’s not practical that we should continue with such detailed analysis. I hope, however, that you will read perceptively, and take from each paragraph the kinds of meaning that most interest you. We can now examine the layers discerned above as they play out across the whole novel.

2A. Plot or Physical Layer—Outward Actions, Dialogue and Descriptions

Voss’s exploration is the Australian successor to famous journeys of the past: Odysseus’s return to Ithaca; the Israelites’ exodus to the Promised Land; the pilgrimage from London to Canterbury in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales; the quests of King Arthur’s knights of the Round Table as they set out from Camelot; and the progress of John Bunyan’s pilgrim Christian to the Celestial City. According to anthropological theory developed by Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner, journeys and pilgrimages are liminal undertakings—they break away from the familiar and routine, into a creative “in between” or threshold state. In this state of transition, “rites of passage” foster deeper self-knowledge and progress to more advanced stages of being.

Voss explains journeying as a liminal state to Laura with perfect clarity: “Every man has a genius, though it is not always discoverable. Least of all when choked by the trivialities of daily existence. But in this disturbing country, so far as I have become acquainted with it already, it is possible more easily to discard the inessential and to attempt the infinite.” (35)

Structure

Chapters 1 to 4 of Voss are set in early Sydney. They present a complex mix of situations and people, overlaid by a sense of futility and incompleteness. The awkward alien, Voss, with his stiff Germanic English, erupts into this society as an oddity or mystery man who may yet, some people think, turn out to be a pathfinder. The key events in this section are Voss’s meetings with Laura, especially their night-time conversation in the garden during the Bonners’ party (Chapter 4: 85-92). This conversation is the climax of the Sydney section.

Chapter 5, the novel’s pivot (turning point), is the lively scene of Osprey’s sailing from Sydney, the beginning of the quest. (QUIZ QUESTION: What other famous Australian novel contains a ship named the Osprey, and what might White’s choice of the name signify?)

The centre of White’s novel consists of Voss’s journey. The narrative alternates with events in Sydney in Chapters 7, 9, and 11. In Chapters 6, 8, 9 and 11, letters by Voss and Laura briefly interrupt the third-person narrative with first-person revelations of the lovers’ thoughts and feelings. Because of the psychic bond between them, Laura’s physical, emotional, and spiritual life in Sydney mirrors Voss’s insights and privations on his journey. In the climactic Chapter 13, short Sydney sections tracing the crisis of Laura’s illness intersperse rapidly with Voss’s capture and murder.

In Chapter 14 Colonel Hebden, who has earlier led a search expedition for Voss, seeks information from Laura, and in Chapter 15 he leads out a second unsuccessful expedition. He at last decides to turn back, ironically “within a good stone’s throw” of the bodies of two members of Voss’s party (422). The narrator then goes on to reveal the fates of these two men (422-26), but the fate of their leader, Judd, is left in suspense. Chapter 16 finally reunites the Sydney characters at a second party in the Bonners’ old house. Here Laura meets Judd, “a wild white man” recovered from the bush after twenty years, who gives an account of Voss’s death, which the reader knows he did not witness.

The Sydney and exploration strands thus run parallel for most of the narrative, and converge at the end.

Because we are interested in the characters, their contrasting yet parallel physical worlds, their relationships, and their intellectual, emotional and spiritual quests, most readers will want to follow the plot of Voss through to a hoped-for consummation or revelation.

It’s essential to get right the fundamentals of the plot—of “what happens next” and “who does what”—so here is a Voss quiz. Complete the quiz, for fun, after you’ve read the novel.

How high can you score? 23-24 Excellent; 20-24 Very Good; 15-20 Good; 12-15 Average—I won’t go on!

VOSS QUIZ

1. What is the name of Laura’s cousin?
2. How does Laura address Mrs. Bonner?
3. What is the name and military rank of Belle Bonner’s fiancé, later husband?
4. Who is the Bonners’ pregnant maidservant, and who is the father of her unborn child?
5. Who are the Palethorpes, and what role do they play in Voss (see pp. 24, 28 and 350-353)?
6. Who are the Pringles, and what role do they play in Voss?
7. What is Voss’s full name?
8. How does Mr Topp earn a living, and what role does he play in Voss?
9. Name eight members of Voss’s expedition, excluding Voss.
10. Name the two stations, the last outposts of European settlement at which Voss and his party stay, on their journey to the North West.
11. Name four characters associated with the first station, and three associated with the second.
12. Which member of his party does Voss send back to the last station; with what purpose; and what happens to him?
13. What name does Rose decide to give her child?
14. What is the name of Voss’s dog, and what is its fate?
15. Which member of the expedition writes poetry in his notebook?
16. What is the name of the childless couple who consider adopting Mercy?
17. Who is Dr Badgery, and what is his relevance to Laura?
18. What are the colours of Belle’s and Laura’s dresses at the Pringles’ ball, and in what ways are they appropriate to each?
19. What bouquet does Belle carry at her wedding; whose idea is it: and what is its symbolic meaning?
20. Which member of the expedition is the first to die? How does his death come about?
21. Which expedition members decide to turn back? Who is their leader?
22. What kind of a character is Dr. Kilwinning?
23. How does the next explorer die?
24. And the next?
25. How does Voss’s death occur?

STUDY EXERCISE ONE

The following summary, by Patricia Morely, of White’s achievement in his novels is repeated often on the Internet, e.g. http://www.bookadda.com/product/flaws-glass-twentieth-patrick-white/p-9780140185744-140185747

[White’s] twelve novels, written over nearly fifty years, focus again and again on spiritual longing. White sifts the human race into one part practical, the other impractical. The practical people settle into a life of doing, and the impractical ones—the visionaries—reach for a life of being. But in human terms even the visionaries fail to satisfy their longing for spiritual understanding. Their quest is never complete, for the novels maintain a nervous, unsettled energy, failing in their open endings to reach the completeness of understanding for which they strive so hard.

How far, in your view, do Voss and Laura succeed in fulfilling their intellectual and spiritual quests?

What is the ultimate outcome of their emotional connection?

2B. Emotional Layer

White recreates the colourful colonial society of the 1840s for twentieth-century readers. For example in the dinner party given for Voss in Chapter 4 (79-83), an abundance of metaphor, simile and symbol contribute to tone and theme.

STUDY EXERCISE TWO

1. Consider the significance of the clothing worn by hosts, guests and servants in the dinner party scene. How do the various descriptions of clothing contribute to characterisation?
2. Find references to light, to glittering jewels and to shining foods in this scene. What might each of these references connote in its context?
3. What might the egg metaphors in the passage suggest? And the references to bones?
4. How does White’s emphasis on the richness and abundance of the food consumed at the dinner party contribute to notions of social class, and to notions of spiritual and bodily hunger and fullness?

Voss deploys recurrent symbols, many of which reverberate with meanings that resist reduction to words—there are no obvious one-for-one meanings, yet symbols carry much of the book’s emotional and metaphysical meaning. Like good poetry, they operate on the reader’s intellect, imagination and feelings at multiple levels, some of which are subliminal.

Follow a Voss “Symbol Trail”: Track and interpret one or more of these “symbol-trails” in your next reading of Voss. Let your imagination work on the symbols, but don’t expect a quick resolution! Many symbols lead only to deeper ambiguity; and don’t rule out the presence of satire or humour.

Choose from: bones, skull, milk, blood, snake (the sacred Rainbow Serpent), flowers such as roses and camellias, gardens, deserts, pears and other fruit, horses, moon, birds, paper, colours, symbols based on the life of Christ (such as the Nativity and Christ’s Passion including the Betrayal), the Eucharist (witchetty grubs Communion?), other Bible stories and quotes, and finally the comet. Leichhardt records the comet in his Journal entry for 28 December 1844 (Chapter 3), but states that it had been visible longer (as in Voss)—since 1 December. For a discussion of the leading group of light symbols, including the comet, read Irmtraud Petersson. “New ‘Light’ on Voss: The Significance of Its Title.”  World Literature Written in English 28/2 (Autumn 1988): 245-259—full text available through AustLit.) Finally, how do you interpret the house of twigs where Harry Robarts and Voss are confined near the end?

2C. Character Layer

In Study Exercise One, above, I quoted Patricia Morley, who sees White in his novels as bifurcating the human race, “into one part practical, the other impractical. The practical people settle into a life of doing, and the impractical ones—the visionaries—reach for a life of being.” This is an over-simplification, but a useful starting point for a discussion of the character layers in Voss.

Expedition Characters

As his name, pronounced “foss” in German, suggesting the Greek word phos, “light,” implies, Voss belongs among the visionaries (see Petersson’s “Light” article). He inspires his men as their leader, and his bravery and determination are beyond question. However, he is physically and linguistically clumsy (and slightly comic), though strong and highly intelligent. He also makes practical mistakes, such as risking the disabling kick from the mule, and losing the equipment and half the expedition’s flour on the raft. As a pre-eminently practical man Judd is Voss’s opposite in this—he saves some of the equipment and half the flour. Judd’s motive in joining the expedition is nevertheless a “visionary” search: See Voss’s assessment of Judd’s self-knowledge: “The convict had been tempered in hell” (137); and read about the spiritual refreshment that Judd experiences in the silent bush (203). (A fascinating comparison with Rupert Dawes’ journey through hell to redemption in For the Term of His Natural Life is invited.) At any rate, the advanced spirituality of the highly competent Judd brings Morley’s simple bifurcation of the novel’s characters into question. Yet the men who follow Judd when he deserts Voss are those who are least developed spiritually—the rich young grazier, Ralph Angus—see p. 132—and Turner, the only evil member of the party.

Palfreyman and Frank Le Mesurier both belong among the visionaries, and can be taken to represent different kinds of spiritual quest. A “palfrey” is a small and gentle horse, usually ridden by the lady in medieval romances, so Palfreyman’s name suggests his gentleness and humility, but with a hint of weakness, as his personal account to Voss of his past, including his relationship with his hump-backed sister, shows (see Chapter 10: 260-64). Palfreyman bases his spiritual quest on conventional Christianity, and his Christ-like death (339-43)—one of the novel’s sublime passages—confirms the strength of his faith, even as Palfreyman himself paradoxically doubts it: “If his faith had been strong enough, he would have known what to do” (342).

Frank Le Mesurier is the expedition figure closest to Voss, and possibly to White himself, since his spiritual quest takes the form of art—the prose poems that he writes in his diary are efforts to get to the centre, the divine essence of life, beyond words: see 296-297. In the episode in which Frank brings Voss’s message to Angus and Turner, he experiences the storm as an epiphany: “he was immersed in the mystery of it” (249). His state contrasts with that of the “troglodytes”—Angus and Turner in their cave. At this point Voss conforms with the bifurcation perceived by Morley. Later White shows Frank as “wrestling with the great snake, his King, the divine powers of which were not disguised by the earth-colours of its scales” (281). Le Mesurier’s suicide, on the surface an act of despair, is simultaneously a transcendental continuation of his journey: “Then, with his remaining strength, he was opening the hole wider, until he was able to climb out into the immense fields of silence” (381).

Harry Robarts is above all Voss’s disciple, a simple young man, who incarnates the ancient paradox of “the wise fool.” Harry possesses an instinctive understanding not to be articulated in words—his insight bypasses the educated mind: “on the other hand, Harry Robarts understood immediately what the [cave] drawings were intended to convey” (280); and “It was often the simple boy who first saw things, whether material or otherwise” (362). Though Harry has become Judd’s friend, at the split his instinctive knowledge makes him stay with Voss’ party: “Then why would not Harry come? There was no reason, except that it was not intended” (348).

STUDY EXERCISE THREE

1. Taking into account the women at Jildra, as well as Dugald and Jackie, consider the depiction of Aboriginal characters in Voss.
2. How valuable to Voss’s expedition are its Aboriginal trackers? Generally, how “politically correct” is White’s presentation of Aboriginal people? Does the novel suggest that Aboriginal people are treacherous? Primitive? Savage? Murderous? Creative? Spiritual? Loyal? Lazy? Gluttonous? Exploited?
3. On the other hand, what gifts, other than political correctness, might White’s presentation of Indigenous people offer to his readers, e.g. by contrast with white characters and their civilisation? What does Aboriginal disregard of European Australian customs and values reveal about these same customs and values? What, if any, congruence takes place in Voss between black and white spiritualities?

Relevant passages: Jildra, pp. 168-72; Christmas feast, pp. 204-206; Dugald, pp. 218-220; Jackie, pp. 391-94.

Sydney and Station Characters

A similar unstable dichotomy, between “practical” and “visionary” characters, is evident in the people we meet in Sydney, at Rhine Towers, and at Jildra.

In Sydney, Belle Bonner, her mother Emma, and father Edmund stand at the head of the “practical” side of Morley’s division. However, their surname points to a fundamental goodness in this family (French bon=“good”). This is borne out especially by events involving the two women, who turn out to be loving, loyal and self-sacrificing. Belle Bonner (her name suggests “beautiful goodness”) bubbles with life and joy; later she is a loving wife and fecund mother, always loving towards her cousin, Laura. Similarly, Mr and Mrs Bonner love their niece, Laura, whom they do not understand, as if she were also their daughter. Despite their social pretensions and the limitations of their materialism, they overcome challenges and remain “good” parents. Out of a sense of Christian duty, they shoulder the opprobrium—considerable in Victorian times—of allowing their unmarried maid to give birth in their house. They later show even more charity and love, when they allow Laura to bring up the child, appropriately named Mercy, as her own.

While Voss, Laura, Le Mesurier, and Palfreyman seem on a superficial reading of Voss to belong to a spiritual élite, and the Bonners and their friends to a lower level of humanity, deeper consideration reveals this to be an oversimplification. Since they are fundamentally humble and humane, the Bonners create a community of friends around them, which the writing encourages us to accept as a high attainment. Although Voss satirises sycophancy, Pharisaic gossip and social climbing by characters such as the Palethorpes and the Pringles, White also celebrates community, and those characters who foster loving relationships within families and groups. Therefore, the harmonious community of Rhine Towers, led by the admirable Sandersons, contrasts with Jildra, dominated by the individualist, Brendan Boyle. Furthermore, as spiritually and intellectually gifted individualists, Voss and Laura contrast, not always to their advantage, with the Potts Point and Rhine Towers people, who focus on the practicalities of family life, on earning a living, and on settling a new country.

In Sydney, Rose Portion, with her simple instinctual wisdom, is equivalent to Harry in the inland. Just as Harry is a foil to Voss’s complexity, Rose is a foil to Laura—see the dialogue between them (74-75) and the symbolic scene in the rose garden, after the Osprey has sailed (158-159). At Rhine Towers, Mrs Judd is a similar character, associated through Voss’s viewpoint with her animals, the goats, in a kind of pastoral idyll (145-147). A released convict like her husband, Mrs Judd is redeemed by her devoted attention to simple tasks, such as making butter, and caring for Judd and their three sons. A reader of their meeting may well conclude that Mrs Judd possesses a bedrock wisdom that surpasses Voss’s intellectuality and ambition. For example, she understands her husband, and men’s propensity to take the lead, and consequently offers Voss good advice: “You will be well advised to let them have their glory, take it from me” (147). One of the many narrative ironies of Voss is Voss’s blindness early on to the warnings and perceptions of ordinary people. (See further Noel Macainsh’s article, “Patrick White’s Voss: The Irony,” in Lesen und Schreiben: Literature–Kritik-Germanistik, ed. Volker Wolff. Tubingen, Germany: Francke 1994: 125-133.)

In Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian and the other pilgrims oscillate between “good” places where they learn, and “bad” places where they suffer punishments or are tempted. In Voss Rhine Towers and Jildra embody this pendulum movement. The two stations also exemplify the dichotomy between “visionary” and “practical” people perceived by Morley. White’s description of the Sandersons sets out what might have been his ideal for living a good life in community. I quote the description at length, because it provides a solid foundation for a narrative that often loses itself, like lived experience itself, in ambiguity, irony, and paradox:

Sanderson was a man of a certain culture, which his passionate search for truth had rid of intellectual ostentation. In another age the landowner might have become a monk, and from there gone on to be a hermit. In the mid nineteenth century, an English gentleman and devoted husband did not behave in such a manner, so he renounced Belgravia for New South Wales, and learned to mortify himself in other ways. Because he was rich and among the first to arrive, he had acquired a goodish slice of land. After this victory of worldly pride, almost unavoidable perhaps in anyone of his class, humility had set in. He did live most simply, together with his modest wife. They were seldom idle, unless the reading of books, after the candles were lit, be considered idleness. This was the one thing people held against the Sandersons, and it certainly did seem vain and peculiar. They had whole rows of books, bound in leather, and were for ever devouring them. They would pick out passages for each other as if they had been titbits of tender meat, and afterwards shine with almost physical pleasure. Beyond this, there was nothing to which a man might take exception. Sanderson tended his flocks and herds like any other Christian. If he was more prosperous than most, one did not notice it unduly, and both he and his wife would wash their servants’ feet in many thoughtful and imperceptible ways. (126)

Comment:

The key to Sanderson’s character is “his passionate search for truth,” a search which he and his wife conduct through reading without showiness, and living without excess. Sanderson has “renounced” Belgravia, one of London’s wealthiest suburbs, “for New South Wales,” so for him migration has been equivalent to a pilgrimage or a retreat to the wilderness for purposes of purification and contemplation. Note the imagery in the passage of eating and of light (“shine with almost physical pleasure”), which conveys the couple’s practice of reading as a way to find truth. The last line of the description refers to Christ’s washing of his disciples’ feet at the Last Supper. An action that, as White’s account suggests, demonstrated that humility and service are the essence of both leadership and community (harmonious human relationships) (Gospel of John 13:4-14).

The prelude to the diametrically opposed description of Brendan Boyle at Jildra mentions a blood-red sunset, a confusion of men and sweating horses, mules and cattle, and an encroaching “unity of darkness” that is unlikely to console. White continues:

Mr Brendan Boyle was of that order of males who will destroy any distinction with which they have been born, because it accuses them, they feel, and they cannot bear the shame of it. In consequence, the station-owner had torn the boards off Homer to chock the leg of the table, and such books as he had inherited, or even bought in idealistic youth, now provided material for spills, or could hope at best to be ignored, except by insects, dust and mould. In his house, or shack of undaubed slab, that admitted day and starlight in their turn, several pieces of smooth Irish silver stood cheek by jowl with pocked iron, the former dented somewhat savagely, in reprisal it seemed, for elegance. The dirt floor was littered with crumbs and crusts of bread. Birds and mice could always be relied upon to carry off a certain amount of this rubbish, but some lay there until it became petrified by time, or was ground to dust under the hard feet of those black women who satisfied the crude requirements of Brendan Boyle. (166)

Comment:

The civilised values that White sees as violated by Boyle and his house are: order; cleanliness; intellectual pleasure and questing through books like the Odyssey; and spiritual and moral aspiration. Instead Boyle has become a quasi-animal, a victim of his sexuality, co-habiting with birds and mice. White has no inhibitions about revealing the failings of some members of his own gender! His analysis of Boyle’s underlying “shame” and sense of having betrayed his talents is indeed astute. In this passage, too, the recording of the imposed subordination Aboriginal people to whites in the mention of “those black women” reflects the racial assumptions, both of the novel’s mid-nineteenth century setting, and of the 1950s, when Voss was conceived and written. In general, however, White’s depiction of Aboriginal people,in contrast with the racism that he must have experienced as normal both in Australia and during his travels and residence overseas, is outstandingly sensitive and egalitarian. (The enlightened Aboriginal painter Alf Dubbo, in White’s next novel Riders in the Chariot (1961), supports this.)

2D. Moral Layer

Like most thoughtful people, White knows that morality (ethics) is the essential basis for spiritual quest. The descriptions of Rhine Towers and Jildra just quoted embody this knowledge: the Sandersons’ Christian practice elevates them towards the metaphysical, while Boyle’s selfishness debases him towards the animal. This same awareness, of the fundamental importance of ethics, pervades all spiritual questing in Voss. I’ll confine this section to an analysis of Laura and Voss, since their ethics are the main difference between them.

Laura’s name (that of the idealised lady of Petrarch’s sonnets) and love of roses (compare the key symbol in the medieval courtly love allegory, The Romance of the Rose) indicate the idealised nature of the relationship between her and Voss, which is intellectual and spiritual. Like Petrarch’s relationship with Laura and Dante’s with Beatrice, their relationship is destined never to be consummated physically, yet its rewards for both lovers, especially Voss, are infinite. Laura accompanies Voss as a feminine redeemer figure through his trials and death, but she also learns and grows reciprocally through him. (We can compare the mutually redemptive roles that Sylvia and James North fulfill in respect of Rufus Dawes in For the Term of His Natural Life.)

From White’s account of the Sandersons, humility emerges as the basis of leadership. However, humility’s centrality to spiritual quest, and Voss’s lack of it, are clarified earlier, in the key conversation between Voss and Laura in the Bonner’s garden. Here Voss teaches Laura the need for faith, but refuses to learn from her the moral centrality of humility:

“For some reason of intellectual vanity, you decided to do away with God,” Voss was saying; she knew he would be smiling. “But the consequences are yours alone. I assure you.”
It was true; he made her know.
“I feel you may still suspect me,” he continued. “But I do believe, you must realize. Even though I worship with pride. Ah, the humility, the humility! This is what I find so particularly loathsome. My God, besides, is above humility.”
“Ah,” she said. “Now I understand.”
It was clear. She saw him standing in the glare of his own brilliant desert. Of course, He was Himself indestructible. (89-90)

As Laura’s closing humorous or ironic insight reveals, Voss is subject to the capital sin of pride. Like Lucifer, the legendary Archangel thrown out of heaven because he refused to serve, Voss intends to discover in the desert his own likeness or equality to God, even his own divinity. Brother Müller earlier foreshadows Laura’s insight, when he sums up his observations of Voss over a visit of several days: “Mr Voss…you have a contempt for God, because He is not in your own image” (50). Voss later repeats his revulsion at humility, usually in reaction against Palfreyman’s commitment to this Christian virtue.

A fundamental ambiguity or question, maintained to the end, is whether Voss’s journey is in fact a parody of salvation—not a journey to healing self-knowledge, but, like Ulysses’s, Aeneas’s and Dante’s underworld explorations, a journey through hell, leading in Voss’s case to damnation.

For example, when Voss dies, Laura’s response in Sydney obviously recalls Christ’s Consummatum est, on Calvary: “O God,” cried the girl, at last, tearing it out. “It is over. It is over” (395). Given other passages in Voss, including some quoted above, I think that this parallel is intended sincerely, to mark the consummation of Voss’s and Laura’s pilgrimage. However, room remains for regarding Laura’s cry as a parody, implying (satirically) that Voss was no Christ, or even (savagely, and I believe improbably) that he was a diabolic opposite of Christ.

What is your view of this?

STUDY EXERCISE FOUR

1. Read the summarising judgments of Voss voiced by Judd, Sanderson, Hebden and Laura towards the end of the novel (442-445). In the light of these judgments, compose (write down in a sentence or two) your own judgment of Voss.
2. “Voss did not die,” Miss Trevelyan replied. “He is there still, it is said, in the country, and always will be. His legend will be written down, eventually, by those who have been troubled by it.” (448)

• How important do you consider Leichhardt/Voss to be in the mythology of the Australian nation?
• How do you evaluate the “writing down” of this legendary explorer in Patrick White’s Voss?

Laura

Despite its title, Voss gives as much space to Laura as it does to Voss. Like Voss’s expedition into the bush, Laura’s urban pilgrimage is multi-layered: it is individual, yet vitally involved with a human group; and it is physical, emotional and spiritual. While Voss is undergoing intense physical and mental trials in the desert, Laura is feverish and bed-ridden to the point of death in Sydney. The couple’s experiences of union as Voss approaches his death are among of the most moving and original love passages in English. They end in Voss and Laura’s mutual recognition for the first time as husband and wife (see pp. 382-84; 392-393).

Voss’s death releases Laura from her mortification by fever, blood-letting and hair-cutting, but it is a crushing loss, partly assuaged by the gift of Mercy (divine mercy?), her spiritual daughter. Laura’s deepest trial of love, undergone at the height of her suffering, tests her willingness to surrender Mercy to the Asbolds.

Unlike Voss, Laura survives her trial, completes her rite of passage, her liminal journey, and returns to ordinary life, where she makes a useful and dedicated contribution to her students and society as a teacher, and later head mistress. Like many of White’s major women characters, Laura is strengthened by her trials to see further into reality than those around her. As she says of her own inner journey, in relation to Voss’s physical journey:

“Perhaps true knowledge only comes of death by torture in the country of the mind” (446; my italics).

2E. Metaphysical or Spiritual Layer

Because this study is in danger of becoming too long, and a challenge itself, I’ll simply make two points under this heading, based on passages in Voss that are central to the issue.

(a)     Paradox

Because of the ineffability of spiritual experience, paradox is the essence of metaphysical language. Accordingly, paradox features in the metaphysical language of Voss. Consider the following passages:

“To make yourself, it is also necessary to destroy yourself,” said Voss. (34)

Frank Le Mesurier’s reading of Voss’s death (and his own):
“Dying is creation. The body creates fresh forms, the soul inspires by its manner of leaving the body, and passes into other souls.”
“Even the souls of the damned?” asked Voss.
“In the process of burning it is the black that gives up the gold.”
“Then he will give up the purest, said Voss.
He pointed to the body of the aboriginal boy….” (361)

“We rot by living,” he sighed. (388)

(b)           Aboriginal Spirituality in Voss

Read the responses of the members of the expedition to the Aboriginal cave paintings (279-283). These are a guide to each man’s spiritual perceptiveness. The feverish Le Mesurier takes the sacred serpent in the cave into his own spirituality, implying a similarity or connection that transcends cultures and creeds. Watching the rising sun at the mouth of the cave, Voss experiences an even more joyful epiphany (282).

While the descriptions of these metaphysical experiences maintain a certain objective distance, and are even humorous at times, it is difficult to believe that overall they are not meant to be taken seriously.

But what do you think?

Further Reading

Bell, Peter. “The Writing of North Queensland History.” LiNQ 9:1 (1981): 54–61.

Chisholm, Alec H. Strange New World: The Adventures of John Gilbert and Ludwig Leichhardt. 1941. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1955.

Macainsh, Noel. “Patrick White’s Voss: The Irony.” Lesen und Schreiben: Literature–Kritik-Germanistik, ed. Volker Wolf. Tubingen, Germany: Francke 1994: 125-133.

Morley, Patricia. The Mystery of Unity: Theme and Technique in the Novels of Patrick White. St Lucia: U of Queensland P, 1972.

Petersson, Irmtraud. “Leichhardt and Voss: The Changing Image of a German Explorer,” in Manfred Jurgensen and Alan Corkhill, eds. The German Presence in Queensland over the Last 150 Years. St. Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 1988: 313-325.

—. “New ‘Light’ on Voss: The Significance of Its Title.”  World Literature Written in English 28/2 (Autumn 1988): 245-259.

Roderick, Colin. Leichhardt: The Dauntless Explorer. North Ryde, N.S.W.: Angus & Robertson, 1988.