Discuss the Representation of People and Landscapes in Patrick White’s Post-Modern Epic the Tree of Man

DISCUSS THE REPRESENTATION OF PEOPLE AND LANDSCAPES IN PATRICK WHITE’S POST-MODERN EPIC THE TREE OF MAN

Upon viewing image 3 depicting a horse in a valley, it is evident that the representation of people and landscapes in ‘The Tree of Man’ indicates the spiritual connection to the Australian landscape, contrasted to the barren nature of suburbia. Patrick White’s ‘The Tree of Man’, first published in 1955, is a fictional novel detailing the life of Stan Parker and his family on an isolated farm. Using a calendrical structure, White creates a parable depicting the contemporary search for meaning. He employs the pressures placed upon the physical environment to echo the metaphysical hardships faced by the protagonists, ultimately solidifying the representation of a connectedness to spirituality through nature and the contrasting detachment experienced in a suburban landscape.

In White’s novel, the Australian environment and nature itself, both in untamed form and when cultivated into a garden by Stan and Amy,  symbolize the valued connection to spirituality as a means of seeking a sense of permanence. Direct, succinct prose establishes Stan as “Inseparable from the garden, from the landscape”, paralleling biblical diction and alluding to the inherent power of the Edenic landscape in comparison to mankind’s physical influence, giving the novel its religious undertone. An allusion to Adam and Eve is also created as Stan and Amy are often addressed as “the woman” and “the man”, leading the audience to see them as archetypal figures and in turn, giving the novel a universal appeal. Ultimately through his experiences in nature, Stan realises that a spiritual force is within him, symbolized by his spit. At the end of the novel, Stan points to his "gob of spittle," and declares "That is God." His religiosity is manifest in a physical substance that was once a part of his body, left to be consumed by the muddy ground of the Australian landscape, permanently connecting them. Thus, White’s portrayal of Stan in the natural landscape clearly establishes the connection between spirituality, the environment and man’s search for purpose.

In contrast to his portrayal of  the natural environment, White presents suburbia as a landscape devoid of spiritual value. Uniting the oxymoronic notions of apathy and endurance, Stan wrestles with the transient nature of the suburban landscape which “filled him with the melancholy longing for permanence” as he walks through “the streets of towns [with] the open windows, on the dusty roads [with] the rooted trees”. The reminiscent tone and emotive language, conveying suburban imagery contrasted to natural imagery, emphasises the metaphor of “rooted trees” which refers to Stans innate, but not yet achieved, desire for metaphysical permanence within a permeable landscape. High modality establishes that the suburban landscape “did not convince Stan”. In contrast, it lead him to “smile for his own secret existence”, emphasising the sense of contentment his connection with nature brought him and rendering it superior to anything suburbia offered him. Through a bitter tone and antithesis, White continues to create a vivid image of  Stan’s lack of concern for the verbose heroics of the “empty faces of confident men”, clearly providing the audience with an impression of the vacancy and lack of spiritual connection within suburbia. White’s comparison of the developed world and the Australian bush reinstates the value of a connection with nature in finding meaning in a transient existence.

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