Characterisation In Away By GowAway By Gow

Set in the Australian summer of 1967, Michael Gow’s Away is an elaborate play which explores the ideas of self- discovery and change. Through the war affected nation, three families, each from different social classes, depart on an iconic Australian holiday to the beach. In the play, Gow utilises the characters to demonstrate that going away physically is intrinsically linked to their mental developments. With the help of references to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer night’s Dream, Away uses Gwen and Coral to show the significant psychological changes made by the characters during holidays to the coast. Tom throughout the play acts as a catalyst for the change in other characters and is associated with Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Michael Gow’s “Away” is an Australian play, set in the summer of 1967-68, in a time of great social and political change. “Away” tells the story of three families, each from different social classes, living in suburban Australia, as they each embark on their own holiday, attempting to escape their underlying personal issues. Immigrants Harry and Vic love their adopted country but are constantly faced with their son, Tom’s, terminal illness, while Jim and Gwen fret over their daughter Meg’s blossoming independence and her friendship with the socially unsuitable Tom, and Roy is unable to console a grief–stricken Coral over the death of their only son during the Vietnam war. Although each family is completely dissimilar, the theme of love remains

In many ways, they’d saved my arse.’After seeing Brendan crying over photos of Daniel Tom thinks p.238 ‘…but for the first time it helped me look at everything with a bit of distance. ..We were all on our own journey, and some days the traveling was worse than others.’P.165 ‘I took the books out and carefully, page by page, started to remove what I wanted to copy. With each memory I touched, I felt it gain-that pain, like a sledgehammer slicing through your heart. It hurt so much but it was a good hurt because it wasn’t in vain. This was going to help Daniel. If he had to face a future, then so did I.’p.242 When Tom and Brendan are at the waterhole talking Tom says, ’Gran says we’ve got to leave our ghosts behind.’p.261 Tom describes his relationship with Chrissy, ‘When I was with Chrissy, I was me again. Simple Tom Brennan- no ties, no debt, no guilt, no bad thoughts……I missed me, Tom Brennan, and that’s why now I could smile, ‘cause I could see that he was coming back.’ And when Tom and Chrissy are swimming together he says, p.283 ‘You are everything. Everything!...You helped me find my old self. Believe me, that’s everything.’

The death of Coral’s son has caused an emotional breakdown as she cannot accept her son’s death. Moreover, Coral has lost her social identity and tends to struggle to find a connection with anyone, as she “can’t think of anything to say” (Act 2, Scene 2). Her husband, Roy, is annoyed by her bizarre attitude and this causes Coral to lower herself to the behavior of a naïve child “I’ll be good! I’ll improve!” When Coral does begin to speak, it is presented as very expressive and mournful. Her tone is filled with emotion as she is constantly “wiping away tears”.

In conclusion, Michael Gow has used outsiders, family conflicts, and grief and loss to refer to the central ideas of the play, “Away”. Gow has used many literary devices such as allusion, juxtaposition, simile, flashbacks and tragedy to convey the message that he is

One’s identity may be questioned when suffering; ultimately suffering is what creates one’s sense of self or what destroys it. The poetry of John Donne and the play W;t, 1993, by Margaret Edson, both illustrate and explore a sense of suffering and identity. In John Donne’s poetry, suffering, both emotionally and physically allows the speaker to understand their identity in more depth, in comparison to Margaret Edson’s play, W;t, Vivian’s suffering leads her identity to be stripped away. In Donne’s sonnet, ‘If poysonous mineralls’ we are shown suffering religiously and emotionally, through one’s sin’s, questioning god’s justice, which leads to a realisation of one’s identity. In Margaret Edson’s play, W;t, Vivian’s emotional suffering

Michael Gow’s play “Away” presents Coral as a character that is in urgent need to undergo profound change. At the introduction of the play, Coral is introduced to the audience as an emotionally unstable and isolated character. Through the use of stage directions, “Coral doesn’t respond”, it is clear that Coral is in her own distinctive world and alienated from society unable to deal with the real world. However, at the conclusion of the play, Coral is presented to be no longer absorbed in her own grief by being able to finally accept her son’s death and express her emotions with her husband,

“Away” is a historical play written in 1988 by Michael Gow. Away reflects to the central ideas, values and conflicts of Australia in 1967-68. The central ideas embrace outsiders, family conflicts and grief and loss which affected families in the play and in the time. Gow uses three main families to convey the message of the play. The use of language and stylistic devices influence the way Gow has been able to speak to the modern Australian audience. In the play, Gow is able to speak to the modern Australian audience with the clever, complex use of allusion. The modern audience would have to do research to understand the allusions in the play however on a superficial level the audience is still able to enjoy the central themes and ideas of the play.

However, Tom originally found solace in the removal from society as it helped ease the memories of the war and his childhood with its simplicity and predictability. As the couple settles and Lucy arrives, the motif of isolation and the island itself darkens to represent a prison, entrapping Tom and overwhelming him with the lies, guilt and knowledge of Hannah suffering miles away. Unlike if Tom were on the mainland where it is much more difficult to escape the constant reminder of their choice, he manages to subdue his restless conscience at times so that “isolation lulls him with music of the lie” (159). Isabel experiences a similar effect brought on by the years of seclusion. During her cathartic visit with Ralph, Isabel admits to the powerful force of the island on her judgement: “Janus was real. Lucy was real. Everything else was just make-belief” (310). Isolation makes it easier for both Isabel and Tom to forget about Hannah and the rest of the world like they are no more than an exciting story out of a book once read, closed and then tucked neatly away in the closet to be revisited

Michael Gow's play, "Away" expresses the idea of going through changes and receiving help from people around you. The key characters of the play experiences change and renewal as a result of their relationships with others ad the summer vacation. Coral and Gwen is two characters that undergo the most changes throughout the trip. Coral manage to moved on from her's son death while Gwen changed from a snobby person to a person who is more understandable. Tom is one of the critical character that help Coral and Gwen realised their issues and surpasses it. The play showed lives of people and their own struggle during the 60s and how they overcome it.

The main theme of this novel work is a powerful journey that lead unknown strangers on this dull island where each one of them life is at stake between survival and fate. The author’s overall message to society is far the intended audience to know how justice needs to be served. The way the author Christie use each element such as characterization, conflict, and style to enhance the theme with the characterization she pin out points from the begging of the novel to let the beginning of the novel to let the audience know that this vacation trip that each of the strangers think they getting is going to turn out to be something more than what they all expect. The conflict again are within each character their self’s and the author make sure that in this novel there’s pin points that the

The Tempest, by Shakespeare, offers the reader a variety of themes. The one theme that stands out the most is that of colonialism. During the time of Shakespeare, many European countries such as Spain, France, and England, were expanding their borders by taking over less developed countries, referred to as colonies. During this time of exploitation, there was skepticism concerning the possible success of the colonies. While some scholars believe that the play is about the Americas, I argue that the play reflects on colonialism in general and how it is destined for failure which is shown through the character’s relationships throughout the play.

The related text Neighbours by Tim Winton follows a young Australian couple's discovery process as they move into a new multicultural neighbourhood. Through the notion of rediscovering something that was once lost or concealed, new perceptions and understanding arise challenging the individual preconceptions, which in turn cause new emotional connections to be formed. When individuals search for a new experience, they may uncover ideas or objects that were thought to be lost through which the individual may review the past or see it in a new light and discover unexpected concepts and understanding. Shakespeare explores this in The Tempest, through Prospero's rediscovery of humanity. This rediscovery is initiated in Act 5 after Prospero confronts

The discovery of human insignificance within the universe is revealed through the disruption of social order, provoking new worldviews and communicating the universe as impersonal. These concepts of discovery challenge the beliefs and assumptions of human power and portray human irrelevance and how isolation leads to self discovery away from society's expectations. The setting of play emphasis isolation on the island and acts as a tool for the characters to explore self without the beliefs of society dominating the individual's values. Prospero, the

Underscoring the notion of relocation, the free-spirited Popoy indeed has been shattered and dislocated. The erstwhile element in the character of Popoy is cognizant of the distressing operations of displacement. As he grows, he learns to forget childhood and face the realities of his life particularly his manhood. Displacement, in this sense, is notably weighty that it does not only affect space and place but also time itself. Alienation is not only a personal experience of relocation but a transit happening in the collective unconscious. The relationship of the father to his son in the story accordingly accentuates the binaries -- outsider/insider, puissant/weak, and inner/outer tensions. The father upholds the fact that life will only achieve fruition in a dimension that is