AustLit

Author's abstract: Throughout her fiction, Shirley Hazzard asserts the importance of the individual life animated by passion instead of controlled by reason. A devotion to reason in her characters is often shown to be either a devotion to conformity or to power. The virtuous character in her work will quietly assert his own humanity without mindless obedience to the group and without the desire to dominate others. The power of love often serves to free her characters, at least for a time, from the control of reasonable conformity. Love is an occasion for both self-discovery and discovery of the richness of life, even though love cannot control life any more than reason can. The lives of Hazzard's characters may not be measured by their successes or failures, for her most admirable characters often suffer the worst fates, but by the integrity and humanity they maintain throughout their lives in spite of circumstances.