Picnic at Hanging Rock

The novel begins with a description of Appleyard College, which is characterized as a quintessentially British colonial establishment. The college’s colonial wealth is apparent from its decadent European furnishings, which include “oil lamps,” “cedar staircases,” “a grand piano in the long drawing room,” “classical statues,” and “marble mantelpieces from Italy” (2). The building itself, which is incongruously grand for its rural location, is “an architectural anachronism in the Australian bush” (2). The staff’s efforts to create a manicured British space extend to the college grounds, which “[comprise] vegetable and flower gardens, pig and poultry pens, orchard and tennis lawns, [and] were in wonderful order, thanks to Mr Whitehead the English gardener” (2). Mr. Whitehead attempts to impose uniformity and foreign aesthetics on the wild Australian landscape. The fact that he is English underscores the colonial dimension of his endeavor.

From the outset, then, the novel establishes the theme of Civilized Versus Wild Spaces. The tension between these two juxtaposing, and overlapping, spaces foreshadows the story’s central conflict and introduces a related theme, that of Female Propriety and Decorum. Within “civilized” spaces, women and girls are expected to present themselves in a fashionable, proper, and British manner. Mrs. Appleyard, with her strict rules, “greying pompadour,” and “rigidly controlled ample bosom” epitomizes this theme; she is “precisely what the parents expected of an English headmistress” (3). Ever conscious of decorum, she instructs the girls to keep their gloves on as they pass through town—despite the intense summer heat.

The characters’ journey to Hanging Rock represents a movement away from the civilized space of the boarding school. The picnic ground contains only a few “manmade” features, such as “fireplaces and a wooden privy” (15), symbolizing the fact that the characters are moving toward the lure, mystery, and danger of wild spaces. Furthermore, Edith observes that the picnic ground is “dreadfully quiet.” The disconcerting and “unnatural” quietness of the space points to the power and danger of the wilderness, a common trope in Gothic literature.

Time is introduced as an important motif when both Miss McCraw’s and Mr. Hussey’s watches stop working as they enter the picnic ground. The rigidity of time becomes associated with civilized spaces, whereas an inability to monitor the passing of time becomes symbolically connected with wild spaces. The girls become disoriented and either unaware of or indifferent to the passage of time as they near Hanging Rock, which epitomizes the sinister mysteries of the Australian bush.

The girls are scared of Hanging Rock, yet they are also drawn toward it, as is illustrated when Miranda warns her friends they should turn back soon, but then continues up the slope. It is as if she is borne forward against her will. Gothic imagery further establishes a tone of fearful mystery around the rocky formation: “The play of golden light and deep violet shade revealed the intricate construction of long vertical slabs; some smooth as giant tombstones” (25). This ominous imagery foreshadows the tragic fates of Marion, Miranda, Miss McCraw, and—later—Mrs. Appleyard.

In the novel, rationality is connected to civilized spaces, whereas irrationality is connected to wild, liminal spaces like Hanging Rock. The characters who are affected by the rock’s influence are, unexpectedly, those who are the most rational. Edith, who is characterized as the “college dunce,” is the lone voice of reason among the senior girls, who are known to be “sensible people.” The girls, who have previously been mindful of the time, fall into “a sleep so deep that a horned lizard emerged from a crack to lie without fear in the hollow of Marion’s outflung arm” (31). This deep sleep carries connotations of enchantment and magic, further personifying the rock as sinister and powerful, while the lizard illustrates that the girls are becoming part of the wild space; there is a sense of a crossing over.

The increasing irrationality of the three senior girls—Irma, Miranda, and Marion—is further illustrated as they begin to act in disconcerting ways, as if they are possessed, such as walking barefoot over the hot, rough ground. In taking off their shoes, the girls symbolically abandon the Female Propriety and Decorum that governs their lives at school. Furthermore, Marion tosses her notebook and pencils into a bush, and Irma performs a dream-like dance in the growing twilight. They seem not to register pain, discomfort, or the passing of time. Irma hears a sound like “the beating of far-off drums” but uncharacteristically disregards it (31). Furthermore, when Edith tries to talk to Miranda about returning to the picnic grounds, Miranda simply “[looks] at her so strangely” before walking away (32). Miranda was earlier characterized as kind and attentive, even to unpopular students; her indifference to Edith’s rational request further establishes the senior girls’ trance-like state.

Edith alone seems to be unaffected by the magic of the rock. Her unheard screams of terror further establish the Gothic mood: “the awful silence closed in and Edith began, quite loudly now, to scream” (32). The landscape is personified as a sinister antagonist, which seems to lure in the three senior girls and induce them to wander aimlessly up the dangerous rockface, and to contain Edith’s screams for help: “Nobody did hear them” (32).

Miss McCraw’s disappearance emphasizes Hanging Rock’s heightened effect on the most rational members of the group. Mrs. Appleyard, shocked, asks, “has Miss McCraw taken leave of her senses?” (39). The figure of speech is an apt one; Hanging Rock seems to induce otherwise sensible people into its orbit before systematically destroying their ability to reason.