Physical Journeys Based on Away by Michael Gow - Essay Example

Journey Area of Study: The Journey Focus: Physical Journeys Based on “AWAY” by Michael Gow Change is a transition, process, or alteration over time that affects everyone. Change is to become different, transform or transcend. Changing self explores the ways change is apparent, within an individual. It examines the notions of development or progress and focuses on personal transformations. Changing self relates to the ways individuals undergo change. Change requires a movement from one place to another. Michael Gow has used this as a metaphor in his play ‘AWAY’ comparing it with a human life and the numerous changes in it. A brief description of the theme of the play would help to understand the play better. Through structure, language and theme Gow shows through his play the impact of the physical journey on the characters (travelers in the play). The physical journey of going away on holidays involves both obstacles and as well as movement to new places. AWAY, The Road Not Taken (Robert Frost) and Shakespeare’s The Seven Ages of Man (As you Like It) all convey the same message to mankind on earth – choose the right path (Frost) on this stage of the world (Shakespeare) by going ‘away’(Gow). To go ‘away’ on a holiday to recoup (rediscover the self) according to Gow is what the human beings need to understand. Gow brings out the necessity for spiritual regeneration for a sense of belonging and harmony with each other and nature. ‘Away’ is a five act play involving three Australian families which go ‘away’ on a holiday during the Christmas of 1968. Roy and Coral (the headmaster and his wife) are on the verge of a breakup; Coral is still grieving over their son who was killed in the Vietnam War. Tom migrated to Australia from England with his family. He suffers from the terminal disease, leukemia of which he is aware although his parents do not know that is aware of it. They are taking Tom for his last holiday together and they are determined to have a good time. Tom and Meg are together in the school’s play A MID SUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM and they are fond of each other. Meg’s parents Gwen and Jim are taking Meg for a holiday so that she can have a break. Gwen believes that one has to sacrifice for anything good to happen to you. The themes of reconciliation and loss emerge as one family deals with the death of their son in the Vietnam War, another faces the prospect of losing their son through leukemia, and the other by their daughter simply growing up. The sea is a dominant symbol for healing in this play. A storm washes away the debris of materialism and leaves the characters unburdened to deal with nature. The families all head to the coast for their annual summer holidays to celebrate the New Year and embark on a pilgrimage with great implications. All three families are brought together on the beach as a result of a physical violent ‘storm’ where the process of healing begins. This has a deeper significance as far as the human life is concerned. This physical storm is a metaphor for the culmination of their problems forcing them to search for solution; their journey begins here. This implies that at the destination of human life is the same whatever may be the obstacles in the path. The storm is also a metaphor for the healing power of nature, paralleled by Gow’s use of light and the outdoors. The opening scene in the school hall has the fairies scurrying about in the “garish light”. After the storm “there is darkness” then the “light becomes warm and intense.” This indicates that a superficial life can be led but to truly understand oneself obstacles and hardships must be overcome but ultimately they lead to a greater understanding of self. AWAY is a play of discovery and reconciliation, precipitated by the 16 year old Tom who is dying. The play transcends time and place. Anyone anywhere in the world can understand and identify with the characters because each of us has at one time or the other experienced grief, loss, death or traumatic relationships. In A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, Oberon, Titania, the King and the Queens of the fairies are arguing over a boy stolen by Oberon from Titania. Her refusal to make peace angers Oberon who tricks her into falling in love with a rude mechanical - Bottom. When she awakes from the enchantment she is reconciled with her husband. Gow too shows how Carol awakens (spiritually), awakens from the grief of her son and she too reconciles with her husband and starts living. Coral is taken on a journey in pursuit of her dead son and finally she and Roy are reconciled through the gesture of the collecting sea shells. The message is that when we awaken to the truth we actually start living; when we are ‘away’ we are lost. We need a ‘storm’ to ‘awaken’ us. It is interesting to note that Gow begins AWAY with a Shakespearean play, A Midsummer’s Nights Dream, and then chooses to end it with another of Shakespeare’s plays, King Lear. Beginning with A Midsummer’s Nights Dream depicts the use of irony emphasizing that everybody is happy as they are about to start their prodigious Christmas holiday “journey”. However towards the ends, the play King Lear is used reiterating the tragedy and change that had occurred throughout the play between the families. Gow has used the same technique as Shakespeare to start with a play within a play – this world itself is a stage where each one has come to play a role and again human beings play within this play. Different individuals undertake different journeys and also derive different meanings in life. Some see this journey as an inspiration that can change ones perspective in life as has happened with Gwen in AWAY. Gow uses various techniques and characters in the play to show us how journeys can embrace in human experiences which leads to a greater understanding in life. In particular characters such as Gwen and Coral define the true meaning of journey embarking on their difficulties and accepting the changes in their life. We can perhaps better understand the journeys and growth through the characters of Gwen and Coral. Gwen is portrayed as a manipulative, snobbish and controlling character that is set in her ways and preoccupied with material possessions. Her vow to “never be poor again” after surviving the depression, brings her to believe that material possessions will bring happiness, and the only way to protect her loved ones, is to control them. Gwen undergoes a change from being total control freak of a mother and wife to coming to an understanding of life. The storm is the obstacle which acts as an agent to bring about a physical change in the life of Gwen. It truly creates a storm in her life and destroys all her representation of self worth (material possessions). The storm is symbolic of the turbulence (churning of the mind) in a human life which sets him thinking and the process of change or healing starts. Through Gwen Gow highlights the dangers of self delusion and adherence to false values. Her first experience is Meg’s outburst, while they were on their Christmas holiday in the summer of 1967-1968. This shocks Gwen and indicates her first realization of her problems. The other reaction was with the news that Tom is dying. She returned from the walk as a changed woman. Gwen has always used bex powder to overcome her stress, but when she stopped it symbolizes that she has become less of a stress ridden women. This reinforces her dramatic change. Towards the end Gwen reveals herself as a completely changed woman. By going ‘away’ a skeleton can be brought back to life. “Coral” is a word that symbolizes a lifeless skeleton, easy to break and take control of just as the character in AWAY before she changes. Coral went through four phases of changes in the play. At the beginning she is a women paralyzed by the grief of her lost son. Roy’s plea is that she behaves normally. She enters a relationship with a young recently married man and she adopts the persona of an artist on the beach. Her original state in her soliloquy in Act 1 Scene 3 shows her as emotionally vulnerable QUOTE. This is what Coral is changing to. Coral’s emotional recovery is profound. She symbolically and emotionally returns from the dead. She had been ‘away’ from herself since the death of her son and had never been able to reconcile with life ever since. The physical journey that she undertakes to the beach is a metaphor for her emotional journey to recover her self and to regain the ability to walk in the world of the living. Her final transformation is achieved theoretically by her performance in “the stranger on the shore” when Coral says “I’m walking, I’m walking”. Gow uses the technique of a play within a play to show us coral awakening, indeed the words of the play “I’m walking” symbolize not only the play character but coral herself. It symbolizes that coral has returned to life. Such changes are represented dramatically throughout the play. AWAY represents many contrast between ones self, through its characters, from the beginning and at the end of the play. The juxtaposition and contrast between Gwen and Coral at the start and at the end of the play is evidence of this. Gow links the character of Tom with Shakespearean characters such as Puck and Lear which are important intellectual signposts. Tom acts as an agent of change or transformation. His own physical journey is towards a fast approaching death and his acceptance of his fate enables others to be healed. He is physically dying but seeks to live every moment. The hopes of a new generation, presented by the central characters of Meg and Tom, rise above the social, cultural, and economic tensions faced by their parents. Tom represents 'Puck' in that his closeness to death triggers off an almost magical transformation in the lives of those who are touched by him. The reality of Tom’s death and the loss suffered by Coral and Roy points to the need to value the present while at the same time knowing where we come from and where we are heading. Gwen reflects on her own life and ultimately realizes that there is life in Tom’s death. THE ROAD NOT TAKEN by Robert frost is a metaphor itself, representing the decisions made in life compared to the decisions in a forest trying to choose the correct path. Inversion of the phrase “long I stood” stresses the thought given to the decisions. It is an inner journey through life and progression through choices. Both roads diverge into a “yellow wood” and appear to be “about the same” in their purpose. It represents two roads, of which only one can be chosen – “as way leads on to way”, making it impossible to retrace your steps and experience everything. The first of the two paths is the more common route than the other “less traveled which is personified as “wanting wear”. The narrator presents a classic conflict the decision between the common easy path and exceptionally challenging path. Repetition is also used to emphasize he is the only person who can only choose one path. “And sorry I could not travel both, and be one traveler long I stood”, Frost delineates a man's limitations to explore life’s different possibilities. He exhibits satisfaction for enduring the uncommon route. But at the same time “sighs” with lamentation, pondering what he may have missed on the alternative avenue. Making “all the difference” by taking the road “less traveled” the speaker becomes a product of his decision. As successful life’s turnouts may be, there is always regret wondering how another path taken brings about other experiences. This physical journey which Frost has created can give a concrete representation of life’s decisions and their implications. He also emphasizes that the meaning of life could be understood by doing something different when he says, ‘I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference’. The 4th stanza introduces a sense a closure to the poem in telling the responder that the experience to choose one road over the other is something that will influence the composer for years to come. We are all besieged by choices at every step in life and making the right choice is what matters and what makes the difference. The power of discrimination to make the right decisions and the right time is necessary through the journey of life. This is also the message that Gow tries to give in AWAY that all the three families had hitherto been on the wrong track in the journey of life and what difference the right path (choice) can make in one’s life. The SEVEN AGES OF MAN is closely related to the play AWAY and poem THE ROAD NOT TAKEN. These look at the journey individuals take through life which is the key role of change and growth. As we can see the persona in the seven ages of man moves in the form of growth and maturity. From left to right we can see a child, a matured man and the last of all as an old man. Journey is the force of growth which allows us to experience and learn, from walking as a child, to showing our affections on one and another and to finish off with precious memories that can last forever. Journey can be said to be a gift that God has given us. To allow us to go into a deeper depth of our perspective on journey the composer anonymous had used various techniques, including uses of the left to right positions showing us that the persona is moving and going through its stages in life. Left to right is a movement technique which symbolizes movement and growth. The dress code symbolizes that the person is adapting to change and growth, and the amount of space on the visual text draws our attention to how important the person is and the journey it is going through. Hence there is nothing that can be replaced by journey for without journey life would be dull. Journey is the true meaning of life. The seven ages also signify the seven layers of frequencies which a man has to cross to reach God; the seven stages in human life too are the numerous obstacles in the journey of life as Gow wants to convey. In conclusion AWAY, THE ROAD NOT TAKEN and THE SEVEN AGES OF MAN all depict the true meaning of journey. It gives us as individuals a greater understanding of life, growth, love, change and death. AWAY is sharply observed as clever, funny and yet very moving. Gow constructs a magical play which deals with going away as in a holiday, Vietnam, loneliness, freedom, death and afterlife. The consequence of this physical journey is for everyone to learn more about themselves and the world around them. The play also brings to light the power of nature (God) to restore people who have lost their way in the materialistic way of life. Through Coral’s grief we learn to draw comfort form each other than through things. The beach is the setting for transformation to take place which symbolizes that to be healed all have to reach the same place – the laps of nature. In Act V Scene I Gow depicts the journey to self discovery, recovery and finally the necessity of coming home. And this precisely is the message in all three texts under here - Frost describes of the man who chooses the least trodden path to the end of the life’s journey to return home; in the visual text the last stage of man culminates in death which again means to return home to where we have come from. A journey to go ‘away’ is a journey to bring about a change, a transformation from the present status, from the stage of the world to stage of the self. Read More