Whites Voss :: Religion Australia Suffering Essays

Whites Voss Whites mind of fate is one in which everyone is doomed to suffer and greatness is measured by the individuals capacity to do so (Brady 1978). This is articulated by Clark who believes that in the harshness of the Australian setting the only glory men know on universe is how they respond to defeat and failure (quoted by Bliss 3). The quest in Voss cannot be read as one that looks forward in expectation of appargonnt results. The usual criteria involved in determining failure must be discarded here. The failures must be seen as inherent, inextricable components of the ongoing process of enough rather than being, articulated in Voss as the mystery of life not solved by success, which is an end in itself, but in failure, in stark(a) struggle, in becoming (269). White has partly used the metaphor of a geographical exploration because the desert explorer must inevitably suffer physically and this allows insight into suffering on the spiritual realm. This links Voss to the wilderness experiences of Moses, Jesus, St Antony and many other desert ascetics. White shows that suffering through losing self is only the branch step of a process of finding a truer sense of self, in acquiring an understanding of the human condition and, ultimately, in coming closer to discovering the presage. The depression of failure facilitating humility will be used in this essay to establish whether the characters in Voss are fortunate in their failures and to consider how White has offer to this fortunate failure in the actual process of writing. Different aspects of failure will be examined, but ultimately they are all part of the necessary failure entailed in the religious quest. Bliss explains this failure as being vital in the recognition that the Infinite, by definition, must be infinitely desire (205). Her superficial paradox is similar to many of the deliberately paradoxical elements of Whites work which all form part of the Christian paradox of recovering a tr uer sense of self through self-sacrifice. It is not unreasonable to see this as the controlling idea behind the fortunate failures as Whites self-stated intention was to write a unused concerning the relationship between the blundering human being and God(White quoted in van den Driesen 77). The interest lies in how this blundering is explored as a necessary part of the Divine quest. Le Mesuriers failure could be attributed to his taking his own life, but this is too literal a view to take in a novel where characters are invested with expanding consciousness rather than diminished awareness.