AustLit

'The argument of this paper is that Mary Hare, one of the four principal characters in a slightly later novel by White, Riders in the Chariot, is the most pronounced of White's ecological avatars. She is a green interloper in the "glass house" (RC35) of Xanadu, an imposing estate on the outskirts of Sydney, built by Mary's father Norbert. Norbert's metaphysical pretensions, like the metaphysical pursuits of Voss, are deeply anthropocentric and blind him to the ecogenic subject of the ecogenic environment around him. He exploits it or disregards it in his design of Xanadu. The ecocritical content of Riders in the Chariot, and of White's writing as a whole, hardly has been spoken to by scholars. I argue this is central to any discussion of White and, further, that this content is central to White's metaphysical themes.'

Source: Colloquy : Text Theory Critique, no.12 November 2006 Sighted: 12/07/2007