Questing for Identity in Patrick White's The Aunt's Story (original) (raw)

1997, International Fiction Review

In The Aunt's Story (1948), Patrick White depicts the fervent desire of modern man to find his identity, and thus achieve a state of wholeness which eventually leads to inner serenity. To White wholeness is finding one's identity, that is, understanding the inherent duality of the animus/anima in the human psyche. 1 Once this is realized, man's innate imagination is inspired, and original creation ensues. The novel depicts the conflicts that arise, the confusion that is bred, and the desire to attain the state of wholeness through a painful but unique experience. The Aunt's Story depicts Theodora Goodman, a fifty-year-old, single woman who decides to take a trip around the world after her mother dies. In the first part of the novel, White describes Theodora as a clever girl who always asks tough questions, and who experiences deep moments of insight. On her twelfth birthday, when she is struck by lightning, the Man who was Given his Dinner predicts that she will know truths no one else does. Theodora is seen in relation to her sister Fanny, her brother-in-law Frank, Violet Adams, the painter, Pearl, Gertie, and Tom. The most significant incident in her life is her meeting with Moraitis, the cellist, who tells her that man can be happy only if he acquires a vision in life. In the second and third parts of the novel, Theodora travels first to Europe and then America. In France, at the Hotel du Midi, she meets the Block sisters, Aloysha and Ludmilla Sokolnikov, Mrs. Rapallo, and the artists Whetherby and Leisolette. The interaction with each one helps Theodora develop and acquire knowledge of human nature. In America she withdraws from the world, lives in a shack, and attempts to form her vision, but Holstius appears to tell her that her life has been a failure because she has tried insistently to reconcile the irreconcilable. The novel concludes as Theodora is quietly taken to a mental hospital.