Those who walk away

Title
Those who walk away
Publication Date
2016
Author(s)
Wayland, Sarah
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7040-6397
Email: swaylan2@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:swaylan2
McKay, Kathy
Maple, Myfanwy
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9398-4886
Email: mmaple2@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:mmaple2
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
The Lancet Publishing Group
Place of publication
United Kingdom
DOI
10.1016/s2215-0366(16)00093-6
UNE publication id
une:19391
Abstract
Last year marked the 40th anniversary of the film version of Joan Lindsay's book 'Picnic at Hanging Rock'. First published in 1967, the book is an Australian-based story set in 1900, in which four students and a teacher from a private girls' school go missing after climbing Hanging Rock. The narrative of the book plays with the danger of the Australian bush, at a time when it was still perceived to be wild and untamed, ready to consume those who did not understand its risks. However, Lindsay also played with its deep magic, which lingers still, where Aboriginal spiritualities and mysticism converge. The mystery of the women's disappearance is never solved, even as one of the girls is eventually found with no memory of the event. Indeed, the only hint of solution Lindsay has ever given is a final chapter, not published in the original novel, where the young women follow a snake into a hole in space. Even here though, no resolution occurs for those left behind. We do not know where the girls are or if they will ever be able to return, and if so, in what state. Here, the readers, and the community, are betwixt and between the details of the absence and the wonderings about the where and the why of the unresolved loss.
Link
Citation
The Lancet Psychiatry, 3(4), p. 327-329
ISSN
2215-0374
2215-0366
Start page
327
End page
329

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