The Isolated Mystic: Spiritual Self-Realization in the Vast and Violent Australian Landscape in Patrick White’s Fiction

Patrick Victor Martindale White (1912-1990) is the celebrated Australian novelist of the 20tc Century. He is awarded the Nobel Prize for his enormous contribution in the field of Literature. He is inspired by the modernist writers like James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence et.al. who have glorified English Literature with their innovative thinking, uniqueness and powerful writing. His writing style is unique and complex. He is the only Australian to achieve the prestigious Nobel Prize in the year 1973 for his innovative writing, the intense psychological depth of his writing and his use of modernist techniques in English Literature. White’s writings are pervaded with the characters’ isolation, loneliness, incompleteness of human speech and communication, the deep inner thoughts and finally self-realization and spiritual awakening. The vast and uncontrolled nature is not a mere backdrop but a veritable dominating and domineering character that controls the story of the fictions. Isolation and a meditative silence amidst the backdrop of the untamed vast nature is a perfect ambience for self discovery and enlightenment.