An epic novel that was published the same year Patrick White won the Nobel Prize, The Eye of the Storm is set in Australia, White’s native country, and covers the period of the first 70 years of the 20th century. The main character is an elderly woman, Elizabeth Hunter, who is declining to death after a vigorous and uncompromising life.
She is surrounded by numerous attendants: her two adult children, Dorothy and Basil, are both now middle-aged and are both scheming to remove their mother to a nursing home; her nurses—Sister Mary de Santis, who has a religious epiphany while caring for the dying Elizabeth, and Flora Manhood, deciding between her boyfriend and a lesbian affair; her brilliant cook, Lotte Lippmann; and her lawyer, Arnold Wyburd. The narrative uses a stream-of-consciousness technique to follow Elizabeth’s thoughts as the words and actions of those around her spark a series of recollections. As she reviews her life and interacts with her attendants, all the characters are revealed in their strengths and weaknesses.
On the surface, the novel appears to be a comedy, but the deeper meanings bear a similarity to the tragedy of King Lear. Elizabeth had survived a life-changing event on Brumby Island, off the coast of Australia: she had been there when a hurricane passed directly over, so that she witnessed both the violence and then the still eye of the storm. This experience becomes the dominant metaphor of her life and emphasizes her status as a survivor and as one under the eye of God.
Her thoughts wander over the past and recapitulate her life, telling how she married a wealthy man in Sydney and brought two children into the world, but at the same time remained determined to experience all of life and to allow no constraints to withhold any aspect of it from her. She had engaged in affairs and become estranged from her husband, only to rediscover her love for him as she nurses him during his fatal bout of cancer. Even this suffering, she realizes, is part of the glorious storm of life.
Elizabeth’s last challenge comes from her resentful children, who gather from their corners of the globe to await the division of the spoils. Elizabeth’s nurses resort to pleading and even seduction, but Elizabeth herself finally must triumph with her last act of will. Patrick White brings this strong woman fully to life in all its phases—from vigorous youth to crippled infirmity—and uses her to explore the range of possibilities open to the human spirit as well as the phenomenon of spirituality. Elizabeth’s hearty feasting at life’s banquet prepares her for her departure and gives her the strength and the peace to let go of life at last.
Bibliography
Beatson, P. R. “The Skiapod and the Eye: Patrick White’s The Eye of the Storm,” Southerly 34 (March 1974): 219–232.
Shepherd, R. and Kirpal Singh, eds. Patrick White: A Critical Symposium. Bedford Park, S.A.: Centre for Research in the New Literatures in English, Flinders University of South Australia, 1978.
Wolfe, Peter. Laden Choirs: The Fiction of Patrick White. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1983.
Categories: Australian Literature, British Literature, Literature, Novel Analysis
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