Where the Lost Girls Lie Rotting —
Lust, mania, and mass psychogenic illness in Picnic at Hanging Rock.
*THIS IS A LONG-TERM PROJECT — More components will be added as I slog through the backlog of evidence I’ve collected…Thank you for even expressing interest in this WIP :)
There is perhaps no single piece of Australian literature which is more enigmatic and more iconic than Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (1963). Adopting the titular landmark of the Macedon Ranges as its backdrop, Lindsay’s narrator describes the harrowing circumstances of a Ladies’ Boarding School in the year 1900.
Four girls — Miranda, Marion, Irma and Edith — set out for a picnic to the Hanging Rock on Valentine’s day. Edith returns in twilight hours, conveying with her the unsettling news that the other three girls had seemingly vanished. Irma Leopold is found soon after, albeit with no memory of the incident. The whereabouts of Miranda and Marion, however, are unknown. Their fate is never decided.
Amongst the myriad tensions present within the novel, a central question emerges: What were the circumstances of the Picnic, and what is the most balanced explaination for the girls’ fate?
The mystery of the disappearance has been approached from geographic and forensic perspectives. The former gathers details from scenes concerning the setting of the Hanging Rock, and associates them with topographic details of the mountain in real time. By referencing early maps of the area, and the “historical” element of the novel — a layout of the picnic can be deducted. This approach, however, is insufficient in that it does not account for unreliability, time dilations and other literary conventions that make real-time referencing laughably inaccurate. The forensic perspective relies on building character profiles for the people present at the picnic, evaluating motives, compiling timelines and observing reactions after the event. Again, the unreliability of the narrator, the pseudohistory, and the assumption of ‘murder’ or ‘suicide’ may filter certain details pivotal to the nature of the girls disappearance.
By extrapolating recurring patterns (both in symbols and structure) and drawing analogies to other literary pieces — a startling solution emerges. This is a didactic perspective based on the following premises:
- Every narrative detail, irregardless of scale, contributes to the progression of the story. In other words, Picnic is deterministic: where later actions are built on earlier actions in a chain of sequential events.
- The narrator of the novel is not a spectator, an ‘objective lens’ or a projection of the author, but a participant in the events of the story.
- That Picnic is a roman-a-clef, in that the ‘key’ to understanding all of the ambiguities of the novel are given to us.
- Lindsay is aware of ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ (Poe), ‘The Bacchae’ (Euripides) and the literary traditions and conventions which might be extracted from them.
^The last point may be contentious, but has grounds for inference. Explicit reference to “The Wreck of the Hesperus” (Henry Wadsworth, attributed to Herman in the text for some odd reason) and “Casabianca” exist — suggesting that Lindsay is both aware of the writings of other authors, and actively makes them a participant of her own story.
This analysis focuses on evidence from the ‘Ascent’ scene in Chapter 3 and the ‘Gymnasium’ scene in Chapter 12. A summary of the two scenes will be provided. Evidence will be presented according to the order they appear in their respective scenes.
A Summary of Evidence
The latter half of Chapter 3 contains a detailed scene that describes Miranda, Marion, Edith and Irma on the day of the picnic. The scene begins with their journey up the Hanging Rock, follows their actions and reactions in a single continuous line of narration from midday to sunset. The chapter concludes with the disappearance of the girls. The Ascent may be divided into parts, each part corresponding to a time of day: the creek (midday), the plateau (late afternoon), the rock (twilight). Each phase of the girls’ climb also brings significant shifts in the psychology of their thoughts and actions, on a scale of absolute awareness to absolute delirium.
The Gymnasium scene occurs halfway along Chapter 12. At this point, Irma Leopold has recovered from her experience at the Rock, after bring rescued by members of the local community. Her family decides to withdraw her from Appleyard College, and Irma arrives to bid her last farewells to her classmates and her tutors. The scene begins when Irma interrupts a gym lesson conducted by Diane de Poitiers (Mademoiselle) and assistant tutor Ms Lumley. The narration shifts focus onto Mademoiselle, as she witnesses an unsettling wave of hysteria develop among the schoolgirls as they collectively hallucinate a vision of the Hanging Rock. Irma’s arrival triggers this vision, and the crowd of horrified girls quickly swarm her in frenzy. Led by Edith, who witnessed the diappearance firsthand, the frenzied girls demand that Irma tell them about the fate of the Lost Girls (Marion, Miranda), and reveal her alleged secrets. Irma is terrified, and cannot understand her peers’ demands. As anxiety mounts to mania, Mademoiselle finds the courage to shield Irma from the group. The climax of the scene releases its tension almost instantaneously. The chaos of the Gymnasium is interrupted by Irish Tom (a relief character) whose presence immediately returns all characters to rationality. The girls return to their duties. Irma leaves the gymnasium without further comment. Mademoiselle seems to be the only character who ‘remembers’ the action, but merely acknowledges it and carries on without question. This scene is symmetrical: beginning with Irma’s arrival and ending with Tom’s arrival.
‘Grey Disciplines’ and the Scarlet Cloak
Every head in the room turned as the ‘Men of Harlech’ halted in the middle of a bar. Mademoiselle rose smiling beside the piano and Irma Leopold, a radiant little figure in a scarlet cloak, stood on the threshold.
- Excerpt 1: Gymnasium Scene
The image of Irma’s scarlet cloak is a recurring element of the Gymnasium scene, and established immediately in its opening lines. In isolation, this detail is hardly impressive — and it would be questionable if we immediately create links outside of the text with such limited information. Interpreted with other details, however, we might begin to establish the meaning of this striking vestment. The question is this: Assuming that the colour of Irma’s cloak is not random, and that its position in the scene build toward its meaning in totality — what might it suggest?
Academic Terrence O’Neill, a friend of Lindsay, details that “It was clear [Joan] was interested in Spiritualism, and longed for some spiritual dimension in her life…So I think she channeled it into her writing. I know she was very interested in Arthur Conan Doyle and his belief in and theories about Spiritualism, the nature and existence of spirits.” The word ‘threshold’ at the end of the line then becomes significant in that it might both literally refer to the antechamber of the gymnasium, and the threshold of intangibles. Although the contents of the scene is not yet revealed, its trajectory toward the spiritual, the divine, and the sublime becomes more and more defined.
Irma enters the Gymnasium and interrupts the dance class overseen by Mademoiselle and Ms Lumley. It is at the point, that the narrator begins to follow Mademoiselle’s experience. From the perspective of the French lady on her piano platform, the class turns to stare in Irma’s direction. Diane de Poitiers quickly realises, however, that these girls are not looking at Irma: their eyes have caught something more intangible, ‘something behind her[Irma] …through and beyond the walls.’
Irma and her scarlet cloak create a ‘communal vision’, and we receive the following description:
Mademoiselle, recognising the hyena call of hysteria, walks calmly to the edge of the dais with madly thumping heart…Too late; the light voice of authority goes unheard as the smouldering passion long banked down under the weight of grey disciplines and secret fears bursts into flames.
- Excerpt 2: Gymnasium Scene
Certainly, hysteria indeed ensues, and this point marks an escalation in the tension of the scene. There is an unsettling detail in describing the raised piano platform as a ‘dais’. Up until this point, any earlier mention of this raised stage refers to it as a ‘platform’. It is only when Irma arrives and hysteria erupts, that the platform becomes a ‘dais’. This association is important because ‘dais’ is almost always used in religious and courtly contexts — referring to the canopy of an altar, or a raised section of the floor which holds a throne. Of course, this might be an instance of elegant repetition — it would, again, be questionable if we extrapolate this in isolation. Yet there is another scene from literature that matches all of the details given to us, and may assist in penetrating the ambiguities of this one. Below are two excepts taken from Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death:
And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation.
And the rumor of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive at first of disapprobation and surprise — then, finally, of terror, of horror, and of disgust.
The resemblance is uncanny, but it is an inaccuracy to assume that the Red Death and Irma are related in conception, or any idea along the line that Linday intended to refer to Poe’s short story at all. What I instead suggest is to use the Masque of the Red Death as an analogous case, and apply its more defined circumstances here. Like the Masque of the Red Death, the Gymnasium scene features a dance interrupted by a mysterious visitor. Irma, like the Red Mummer, is the catalyst for a hysterical stampede. The Prince Prospero who embodies clarity and reason in Masque is analogous to the character of Mademoiselle, who assumes the ‘voice of authority’.
The two scenes are analogous, in that both their progression and outcome are fundamentally equal: the cessation of the music, the entrance of a mysterious figure in red, the ensuing panic. Irma’s association with the “death (lit: absence)” of Miranda and Marion is established later in the scene, when the girls (led by Edith, the only other survivor of the picnic) berate her with accusations of conspiracy. Significantly, both the Red Death and Irma is associated with ‘death’ in the basest sense — the loss of individual lives, the suffering dealt upon immediate relations — their presence brings ‘terror…horror…disgust’ in this order described by Poe. Simultaneously, the Red Death is unsettling because its ‘intention’ is ambiguous — whether it embodies indifferent death, a universal will, or a teleological constant: we cannot know — and this aspect of impenetrability contributes significantly to its horrific presence. Irma is similarly unknowable for the other girls — she is a senior student from Appleyard College, holding sway over the gossip of the group; her opulent background isolates her from the cast, making her almost inapproachable; and she is about to walk out of their lives entirely — and from the nervous breakdown that ensues, we may observe just how much influence her person really commands. Irma’s symbolic role certainly overlaps that of the Red Death’s, but Lindsay’s construction of this scene has facilitated another facet that is entirely unique to Picnic, which we should now analyse.
Reviewing Excerpt 2, we have addressed one half of its contents — that the arrival of Irma might have a similar implication as that of the Red Death. The remaining description of ‘smouldering passion…grey disciplines and secret fears’ also deserves attention.
On one hand, it is easy to make the link that the ‘smouldering passion’ mentioned refers to the “hyena call of hysteria”. The term “hyena call” is jarring and almost anachronistic. Why would Lindsay actively alienate the Australian bushland setting she delicately builds, in favour of using this term? It is precisely relevant for the context of the ensuing “communal vision”, when the girls hallucinate Miranda’s rotting corpse and other chthonic images. No other animal cry would be more fitting, Australian or otherwise, than the carrion-seeking hyena. Add the literal sound of the hyena call, an absurd and deeply disturbing “giggle”, and we have certainly established the atmosphere of this scene — the state of perverted revelry and crazed horror, simultaneously exhibited — madness.
On the other hand, ‘smouldering passion’ is placed in apposition to ‘grey disciplines and secret fears’. Fear aside, what could ‘grey disciplines’ reveal about the circumstance of the scene? To answer this question, we must consider the narrative landscape of Appleyard College thus far. The narrator has made an effort to emphasise the dogmatic conservatism which the College nurtures, with all of the absurdities of European etiquette unified in the character of the Headmistress Mrs Appleyard. The juxtaposition of the College catechisms and its colonial setting is initially presented comically: more focused on the quirkiness of the Headmistress and her policies than anything more. However, these same ideas are explored in an increasingly sinister manner toward the end of the novel.
The Virginal Bacchant
PROJECTED RELEASE TIME: 7th April
