AustLit

'‘Flight’ as a narrative of escape pervades Australian literature. In his article ‘Decomposing suburbia: Patrick White’s perversity’ (1998: 56), Andrew McCann argues that its prevalence establishes the trajectory as a prerequisite to self-actualisation, whereby a protagonist can only be fully developed (in the narratalogical and psychological sense) via acts of corporeal relocation. Moreover, the ubiquity of flight implies states of restlessness and discontentment, of unresolved yearning, as recurrent characteristics of Australian fiction.' (Introduction)