COMMON MODULE: TEXTS AND HUMAN EXPERIENCES

VERTIGO: A PASTORAL

➔ The title and mode of this novella hint at its contextual foundation.
➔ A pastoral frames the idealistic longing for a simple way of life.
➔ It involves the sentimental idea that when a simple, rural way of life in commune with
nature is compared with the busy striving for materialistic pleasures in the city, the
natural life will be seen as an authentic and preferred lifestyle.
➔ However the author tempers this with the notion of vertigo, a loss of balance when
placed in a strange environment.
➔ The two together suggest that while it may be preferable to live the rural, simple way,
the transition will bring challenges including disorientation and loss of balance.

SETTING

➔ Although the majority of the novella’s action takes place at the fictional seaside town of
Garra Nalla, it is important to consider both the city and the rural landscapes in this
text.
➔ Luke and Anna Worley live in the city in a small and damp apartment. The street noise
drowns out any nature and they are constantly surrounded by movement.
➔ They work in small spaces they have etched out for themselves, Anna in a room that
overlooks the fire escape and Luke in a rented location in a warehouse.
➔ The comparison to their workplaces when they arrive in Garra Nalla is profound. Anna
‘retires to the back sunroom … [to] look west to the smoky blue hills’ and Luke spends
his time in a ‘sunstruck eyrie in the roof’.
➔ The physical impact of the city is also made prominent when Anna becomes unwell
and loses her vigour and health. The constant ‘smoggy blanket’ that surrounds the pair
is devastating and even the subsequent smoke from the fire has less of an impact on
Anna’s asthma.
➔ As expected in a pastoral, the small coastal hamlet of Garra Nalla where the couple
resettles is in stark contrast to the city.
➔ The idyllic headland, with its sprinkling of bushland, long beach and small wildlife-filled
lagoon, and the cosy yet affordable house, with its hearth, a stone lined fireplace and
long verandah from which to take in the wide views, induce notions of warmth and
family with space to spread out and work; divergent images when compared to the
cramped claustrophobic descriptions of the city and the apartment.
➔ The presence of a variety of birds and Luke’s interest in them highlights the immediacy
and availability of communing with nature and juxtaposes the bird noises of the city,
unidentifiable to those living there.
➔ The boy reflects the positive nature of the change. He accompanies the couple on
their scouting journey to find a coastal property, propped up in his chair and looking
curiously at the scenery.
➔ Once settled in the new location the boy springs to life, shrieking at waves, running in
the yard and exploring the lagoon in the canoe.
➔ The sense of family this brings highlights the optimism that the move has encouraged.

PLOT SUMMARY

Part 1: ➔ Luke and Anna Worley own a small editing business.

➔ The couple are considering a sea change at the
 beginning of the novella.
➔ They would like to move to a more affordable suburb
along the coast, compared to their current expensive
city living.
➔ Anna’s friends presume the move is due to her
asthma, although the doctor mentioned she would be
no better in the country with her symptoms.
➔ On weekends, the Worleys set off on adventures to
find coastal towns they may inhabit in the near future.

Part 2: ➔ The environmental drought persists and the land is dry

and “crisp.”
➔ Luke also befriends a man called Gil who has a
grandson who is a commando fighting in Afghanistan.
➔ Heat and dryness become recurring motifs in Part II.
➔ Anna is considering asking Luke about returning to the
city. They return for a holiday but Luke is restless and
returns to the coast after five days.
➔ Anna stays behind for a while longer. While away,
Anna reflects on their time in Garra Nalla and
concedes to stay for at least another year.
➔ Her husband becomes obsessed with bird watching
and Anna feels that she is detaching from her
husband emotionally.
➔ Anna and Luke settle into Garra Nalla, which is
currently experiencing an extensive drought.
➔ Alan Watts and his wife Bette befriend the couple;
Bette is a nurse and Alan is a local high school Maths
teacher.
➔ The “boy” is referenced when Luke is waiting for Alan
to finish his discussion with the helicopter pilots on the
headland. “He thinks he catches a glimpse of him
lurking in among the shadowy she-oaks that line the
court…”
➔ One evening when all of the friends are together,
Bette asks Anna: “Do you think, Anna, that you’ll ever
start a family?” This is one of the first indications to the
reading audience that “the boy” is possibly a figment
of the imagination.
➔ Luke’s father and wife come to stay to view the
couple’s attempt at a sea change and the young
couple feel judged.

Part 3: ➔ Part III focuses on the increasing heat, winds and the
threatening bushfire. Smoke and darkness become a
recurring motif.
➔ There are moments of brief relief but of course, the
fire intensifies. Gutters are cleared, wet flannels are
applied and homes are prepared.
➔ Anna’s greatest fear returns: “The threat of loss is
 beginning to chew at her mind like a small, gnawing
rodent…” The loss referred to here is the possible loss
of their home from the menacing bushfire but thoughts
are rekindled of a previous loss: “Ah, but where is the
boy? She had almost forgotten him.”
➔ Lohrey utilised short sentencing within the dialogue on
p.109 to represent the panic felt by the characters.
➔ Rescuers arrive in the form of young bushfire men in
their fire truck. The climax builds as people lose their
homes and the fire continues to threaten lives.
➔ Relief accommodation is provided in a church hall for
the locals affected by the blaze.
➔ The devastation also ignites Luke’s memories of their
deceased child and he has a cathartic release in the
charred bushland.
➔ The community bands together after the devastation
and provide support for each other.

LUKE

➔ Luke Worley appears for the most part a peaceful and caring character.
➔ He initiates the move to the country in response to his wife’s needs. He appears to be
considering her in all things.
➔ However, underneath the surface unfolds a different story. It is Luke’s own optimism
becoming ‘jittery’ that may have prompted the move, as once they have moved, his
own interests seem to take precedence over the continued care of his wife.
➔ He begins his interest in birdwatching and spends quality time with Gil (Gilbert Reilly)
and Alan Watts. Anna is frustrated and feels alone.
➔ Luke appears to have moved on from the city and in fact from the never-discussed yet
underlying event, the stillborn birth of their child.
➔ Although a city boy at heart, Luke embraces the rural life, leaning on Gil and Alan to
model the way. He makes repairs, meets the local helicopter pilots and even defends
his home from a fire.
➔ Luke is unwavering about their decision to move to Garra Nalla, never doubting that it
was right for his family.
➔ When Anna struggles to fit in and feels uncomfortable, he becomes frustrated with her.
He arranges for some furlough time in the city but is keen to return to the cottage as
soon as he can, leaving Anna behind.
➔ Luke’s carefree nature and ability to adapt to their new surroundings belies the deep
grief that he has suppressed.
➔ Although he appears whimsical about the appearances of the boy and comfortably lost
in his memoirs from Palestine, Luke is still deeply troubled in the same way Anna is
but never shows it.
➔ After the ravaging fire, Luke takes a walk and with every other distraction stripped
back, faces the event and breaks down. It is this sign of emotion that Anna has been
waiting for and which brings them closer together, healing the rift that had begun to
appear in their marriage.

Quote: Luke Worley grew up on the edge of the city, in a neat

suburban garden with a green lawn and a date palm, and in
 all that time he never developed the least interest in birds…

Significance: Caught between two worlds - seen in the prepositional

phrase ‘on the edge’ - implies Luke’s connection to the
natural world was shallow but still there.

Quote: Near Luke’s apartment block there was a mournful bird cry
that could be heard at around three in the morning when he
happened to wake in the dark, perhaps from a bad dream,
but somehow he never got around to identifying it. He meant
to, but it was one of those things that fell out of your head…

Significance: This foreshadows the identification of the bird in the next

chapter where bird symbolism becomes prolific in connection
to Luke. Symbolic of freedom, the birds contrast with the
claustrophobia and entrapment of the city which may
indicate the significance of the adjective ‘mournful’.

Quote: The clarity of thought that enlightened his twenties had

begun to darken, in the way that a smog haze settles by
degrees over a bright morning.

Significance: This reveals that Luke is thinking about his past and about
how his twenties were so bright and enhanced; however at
one point that enrichment started to deteriorate. This is
demonstrated by the use of descriptive language of his
thoughts and perspectives of his life. The simile of the smog
haze also suggests the polluting influence….

ANNA

➔ When the novella opens Anna is lamenting her diminished state of physical and
emotional wellbeing. Once active and proud of her fitness she has encountered
asthma problems and struggles with the damp apartment.
➔ Although a child is initially presented as being with the couple, it will be revealed that
Anna lost the child at seven months and the child’s presence is imaginary.
➔ Lohrey narrates much of the novella from Anna’s point of view. This reflects the
different ways in which the characters are dealing with their life change.
➔ Anna is unsettled. Her reaction to losing a child and imagining that he accompanies
them is overt. She finds it hard to integrate with the life change, the elements and the
snakes conspire to question if she can make the change permanent. At one stage she
retreats to the city exemplifying her dual-mindedness.
➔ Anna has a connection to the city that never truly fades. This is in comparison to Luke
who develops habits that take him further away from the busy lifestyle.
➔ Luke’s newfound love of birdwatching and reading exotic travel memoirs is
monumentally different from Anna’s habit of tuning into the television to watch the
news services and soak in images of war, trouble and the city.
➔ The novella’s title is generated by Anna as she questions where the couple are
headed and what is the point of their changes. She feels the ‘vertigo’ of being dizzy
and disconnected from Luke, the land and the boy.
➔ The change has been unsuccessful in bringing happiness, much like the author Teves
 in Palestine in the memoir Luke reads.
➔ It is only through fire that Anna re-emerges anew. She has a new connection with
Luke after seeing him grieving and a new hope for their property and for them as a
family, signified by her throwing her contraceptive pills in the rubbish.

Quote: It was Anna who prided herself on her fitness… For days she
felt weepy and vulnerable, as if she were no longer the
person she thought she was, or had willed herself to be.

Significance: When Anna develops asthma, it exacerbates the discontent

the couple already feels. The conjunction ‘or’ highlights the
revelatory aspects of her character in that perhaps Anna was
not being authentic to self but rather ‘willing herself’ into an
identity.

Quote: Though scornful of the crass material ambitions of others,

she was secretly ashamed of the shabbiness of her
apartment, and fed up with the cheap holidays. But this was
only material lack; what was worse was the corrosive effect
on her goodwill towards the world… She was past thirty, she
was in a spiritual impasse and she needed to find a way out
of it.

Significance: This statement demonstrates how ashamed and irritated she

is by the fact that she is in her thirties, assuming where both
she and her spouse are expected to be stable and
somewhat experienced in life. The persona uses her
symbolic literature and descriptive imagery to demonstrate
the spiritual impasse.
Anna's low socioeconomic status drives her to consider
re-evaluating where she is sit uated within her life. The lack
of affordability towards the expected ‘necessities’ for her age
encourages a sense of hopelessness and failure in both the
present and for the future.

Quote: There were nights when Anna lay in bed with last-minute
misgivings but Luke, typically, was resolute. And so… they
packed up and moved, though not before Luke had
upgraded their espresso machine to a more expensive
model.

Significance: Contrasting Anna and Luke reflects their individual identities

in that one is hesitant and the other more embracing of the
sea change. Yet, there is comedic emphasis in the upgrade
of the machine because it suggests a desire for a certain
lifestyle.

Quote: Anna and Luke identify the Pardalote bird through using a
book purchased on Birds of Australia. It is a ‘migratory bird
who travels south in spring to breed and fly away in winter.’
Significance: Symbolism is used in this quote to compare Anna and the
Pardalote bird with each other. This is done by stating that
the birds fly away in Spring to breed, and similarly Anna runs
away from the city to Garra Nulla to avoid accepting the loss
of her unborn child. Another point this is seen to depict is
how birds migrate to different places, and just like that Anna
& Luke have migrated from an urban area to a rural area.

Quote: To her sister Stephanie in Hong Kong:

‘It’s hard to describe the effect this weather has on my state
of mind… I don’t know if I can stand the drought much
longer. I keep wondering if we’ve made a mistake.’

Significance: Anna's indecisive state of mind demonstrates her

contradicting thoughts on Garra Nalla as she questions
whether the transition was effective. This is evident through
the use of the ellipsis, as it conveys the perplexed and
troubled mindset of Anna.

OTHER CHARACTERS

The Boy: ➔ The boy is a figment of the imagination and dreams

of Luke and Anna.
➔ He appears to the reader without details at first in the
same way he appears to Anna and Luke; an enigma
that leaves the characters and the reader blurring
lines between fact and fiction.
➔ As the novella progresses it is discovered that Luke
and Anna were expecting a child but the child died
seven months into the pregnancy.
➔ The boy reflects the couple’s hopes and dreams,
becoming enlivened by the move to the country,
seeking contact when Anna is feeling isolated and
eventually setting sail when the healing is complete.

Luke’s Parents: ➔ Representative of the city life, Luke’s parents are

urban dwellers. They are unable to assist Luke when
he asks about a local bird call. This disappointment
suggests to Luke that they do not know all they
should as parents.
➔ After the move to the country Luke’s father, Ken,
arrives and spends time with the couple. Luke and
Anna are instantly on edge. His presence is a
reminder of the city lifestyle.
➔ Ken is patronising in his ‘matey’ approach to Gil and
Luke, and Anna cannot help but notice they do not
get along.
➔ When asking about their wellbeing, Ken raises the
loss of the child but cannot find the words, instead
simply referring to ‘that other business’.
 ➔ This agitates Luke in some ways, and highlights that
Luke and Anna have not found the words or healing
to move past this tragic event.

Gil (Gilbert Reilly):
➔ Gil is Luke and Anna’s nearest neighbour in Garra
Nalla.
➔ Approving of the sea-change generation – those who
have exchanged the city streets for a coastal location
– Gil immediately welcomes the couple and is an
ever-present source of information to them.
➔ He is practical and has extensive local knowledge and
shares some of the same characteristics as the
Worleys.
➔ Gil has a son in Afghanistan about whom he refuses
to speak; it seems he is superstitious that if he were to
dwell on his son’s situation, something bad may
happen.
➔ He does not mention his son to Luke and Anna in the
same way they do not mention the Boy to him.
➔ These secret layers to people’s lives are part of the
human condition for those who live in Garra Nalla;
grief and fear exist but are never discussed.

The Watts Family: ➔ Alan and Bette Watts live in Garra Nalla with their two
small children.
➔ They quickly become Luke and Anna’s friends.
➔ The couples play tennis and have lunch but Anna
does not feel as included as Luke who instantly takes
a shine to Alan.
➔ The Watts family represent the rural and natural
lifestyle, dressed for the beach, embracing the sun
and nature.
➔ They have plans to harness natural energy to power
their home.
➔ Alan and Bette survive the fire and stoically press on,
hosting the lunch to show others that things are
getting back to normal.

THEMES

A Pastoral-
➔ The city is represented as a threat to the emotional and physical wellbeing of Luke and
Anna. The decision to move to the country to escape the pollution and financial
stranglehold is the key to a pastoral text.
➔ It appears on the surface to present the largest change that Luke and Anna must face,
however the simplistic rural life also has unexpected challenges.
➔ On one hand, it will present tranquil life and an opportunity to commune with the more
natural environment, on the other hand, it will show that the natural environment can
be harsh and unforgiving.
➔ The change of life will also mean that Anna and Luke will have to face the fact that
 even though they have exchanged exterior landscapes, their interior landscapes have
followed them.
➔ The initial settling in period seems to have proved to support their decision. Through
describing the landscape as uncultivated and being ‘out of time’, Luke and Anna can
‘live, and simply be’.
➔ Far from the trappings of the city, their new weatherboard homestead is personified as
having been ‘waiting for them’. Luke and Anna become increasingly grounded.
➔ One way they achieve this is through preparing a garden by ‘digging in the garden
until they have calloused hands’. They realise they are working soil that has been
worked for a long time, helping them become part of an ongoing part of nature.
➔ Luke’s adjustment appears to be easier; he immediately defines himself as an
‘observer’ of nature and spends time tracking birds. Anna’s adjustment is not so rapid.
➔ Drought and fire, accompanied by the symbolic snake, foreshadow a trying time for
the couple at the hands of the nature they had craved. However when Anna spends
time in the city she soon longs for the natural world again showing that they are
becoming a part of the landscape. Coupled with this is the fact that Anna and Luke
have not fully escaped the city.
➔ Luke’s father visits and reminds Luke of a ‘wasted degree’ and disrupts the harmony of
the couple’s relationship with Gil. Anna also invites the old life into the homestead by
constantly watching news reports from around the world.
➔ Nature, in the form of their lost child, had already been harsh to the couple but they
thought they had moved on.
➔ Ultimately, nature responds with the fire. Foreshadowed by Anna’s discussion with Gil
and her research into she-oaks revealing that certain species need a fire to regenerate
dormant life.
➔ Luke and Anna survive and become closer through the event. They have no doubts
about their place in the landscape and settle about rebuilding the community.

Grief-
➔ Beneath the natural landscape of their new life hides an unspoken pocket of grief, one
that each of the couple are dealing with separately.
➔ Luke becomes engrossed in a dusty book by a long-dead explorer, a man whose
account of wandering the Promised Land is marred by deep sorrow.
➔ Anna constantly seeks the boy and believes he is siding with his father. At night she
surfs the cable news channels seeking connection with the outside world.
➔ However, Anna and Luke never meet to confront their grief.
➔ Likewise Ken, Luke’s father, has also buried the grief of losing a potential grandson
and cannot name the event when discussing it with Luke referring to it as ‘that other
business’. Luke sees that his father is grieving but the two never discuss it, suffering in
their own way in the same way Luke and Anna are like ships in the night.
➔ Garra Nalla provides an occasion for Luke and Anna to more carefully examine their
own feelings and finally communicate. Before this happens, however, the unspoken
grief drives a wedge between them.
➔ Anna senses a distance between herself and Luke, resenting his apparent ability to
move on and integrate with the landscape.
➔ Anna ponders the meaning of life past everyday survival and this induces a sense of
vertigo, a dizzying sense of disorientation, as if she is about to fall.
➔ It is only when the landscape is stripped bare through fire and the two are vulnerable
that a connection is made to heal the couple.
 SYMBOLS

The Boy-
➔ Luke and Anna are referred to as ‘his parents’ who ‘do not look one another in the
eye’. This shows that they both deeply connect with the boy as his parents but do not
work together through their shared experience of the loss of the child the boy
represents. Instead, the couple suffer their loss individually, having individual
apparitions of the boy.
➔ The boy is presented in several ways: as a ghost, a figment of Anna’s imagination and
in Luke’s thoughts. He is at the heart of the story and the couple never question his
existence.
➔ Symbolically, he represents one of the things the couple are trying to leave behind. Yet
he becomes an even greater presence in their lives when they move to Garra Nalla
and they are ultimately forced to confront what the boy represents in their lives, that is,
the grief they experienced after losing their child.

Birds-
➔ Birds are emblematic of the growing awareness in the couple of the natural world.
➔ In the city they are hard to hear and impossible to identify. Their cry is a ‘mournful’ one
suggesting the choking landscape of the city.
➔ In the country setting the couple list and identify birds that they have never heard of
prior to moving.
➔ At one point Luke looks at a bird and feels an energy exchange between them, a sign
of his connection with nature maturing.
➔ Anna’s metaphorical comparison to a lost migratory bird shows she has a more difficult
time in connecting fully with nature. This is reflected in her desire to plant a garden
and control the environment around her.

Sweater-
➔ Symbolically, Luke’s navy ribbed wool sweater saves the house from catching alight
when the wool retards the ember that enters the room.
➔ Luke had left the jumper on the bed as it ‘reminded him of too much of other damage’.
➔ The jumper was symbolic for him of their baby’s death. It therefore not only saves the
house but brings Luke and Anna together after their house survives, symbolically
allowing them to continue on and raise a family in the home they have made for each
other.
➔ This is portrayed through the imagery of them embracing in the ‘doorway of their
home’, a sign of a new beginning.

TEXTS REPRESENT HUMAN EXPERIENCES

Grief: ➔ Grief is a collective and shared human experience for

Anna and Luke, which is demonstrated through their
shared ability to see and interact with “the boy”, who
acts as a symbol or physical manifestation of their
grief.
➔ However, grief is also represented as an individualised
and personalised experience, which Lohrey shows by
exploring:
a) The differing ways that Luke and Anna interact with
 the boy.
b) The divergent and gendered coping mechanisms
adopted by Luke and Anna.
➔ Luke and Anna’s journey through grief also operates
as a social commentary about the influence of gender
and societal expectations and how these shape the
way that individuals navigate human experiences.
➔ Interestingly, it is only when both Luke and Anna shed
these expectations and gendered behaviours that they
are able to accept and find peace with the loss of their
son.
➔ Equally, despite the individualised nature of grief, it is
only when they share this experience and reconnect
that they are able to overcome it.

Human Emotions and ➔ Anna lacks control of her emotions, struggles to

Qualities: escape from their confines.
➔ Luke is avoidant, uses connection with the
environment around him to disconnect from his
emotions.
➔ Luke’s ability to deny his grief and adjust easily to the
new environment creates animosity and jealousy in
their relationship, as Anna is unable to do so.
➔ Anna and Luke experience jealousy, as their friends’
are able to meet societal expectations.
➔ Both Luke and Anna are motivated by the feeling of
hope presented by the move and symbolic ‘new
chapter’ it represents.
➔ Both Luke and Anna build resilience throughout the
novella, ultimately overcoming their grief and finding
acceptance.
➔ Resilience is built through navigating difficult
experiences.
➔ Perseverance - despite the disconnection felt within
their relationship at times, both continue in the hopes
that they find reconnection.
➔ The vertigo induced by the loss of their son and
relocation created emotional instability.
➔ Emotions determine their view of the world.

Paradoxes, Anomalies & ➔ Their move to Garra Nulla is inconsistent with their
Inconsistencies: individual/marital decisions thus far.
➔ Paradoxically, the couple moves to Garra Nulla to
escape their grief, yet also brings ‘the boy’,
representative of their grief, with them.
➔ Anna and Luke experience inconsistencies within their
collective relationship in a multitude of ways; the
coping mechanisms they engage with to overcome
their grief, ability to adjust/adapt to the new
environment.
 ➔ In the climax of the novel, the couple subverts gender
expectations (Luke cries and Anna supports him in the
doorway), which is an outlier of their earlier behaviour.
Interestingly, this is also the moment of reconvergence
in their relationship (as they had been distant) and
acceptance of the loss of their son.
➔ Despite their strong desire for a family and child
reflected in their shared manifestation of the boy,
Anna returns to the pill, preventing any opportunity to
realise that dream.
➔ Anna’s feelings towards Luke are inconsistent
throughout the novella. She experiences love,
resentment, jealousy, apathy etc.
➔ Luke deviates from his normal behaviour, as a result
of his grief, previously uninterested in nature, he
becomes fascinated by it.
➔ Visions of ‘the boy’ both soothe and hurt the couple.
➔ Response to ‘the boy’ belies their education and
backgrounds.

Human Behaviour and ➔ Their move from the city to the country is motivated by
Motivations: adversity and a strong desire to escape their grief/
unwanted memories of the boy/failure associated with
the city.
➔ The text reveals that humans are motivated by
emotions → sometimes emotions drive motivation
(such as a desire to relieve their grief), other times the
desire to feel a particular emotion is the motivating
factor (to be happy again).
➔ Grief/loss causes a mass shift in behaviour → Anna
physically deteriorates, is unable to engage in
previous, healthy behaviours + Luke changes both his
perspectives and behaviours, becoming ‘outdoorsy’,
obsessed with birds and the natural environment.
➔ Human action can be contradictory to emotions →
creating paradoxical behaviour
➔ Human behaviour can be a reflection of the physical
environment, as suggested by both the drought,
Anna’s gardening, and Luke’s visceral response to the
bushfire.
➔ Behaviour is socially conditioned, both Luke and Anna
respond to their grief in gendered ways, which is
particularly evident in the flashback.
➔ Anna and Luke conform to the social and physical
environments they are a part of, revealing an innate
need/motivation for humans to ‘belong’ and change
behaviours to suit their new situation.

Magical Realism: ➔ Magical realism is when a text includes fantasy,

magical, mysterious or unreal elements into the
 narrative as if they are real.
➔ So, although the setting is real, there are some
elements in the novel that feel unreal or surreal
(dream-like, or a mix of fact and fantasy).
➔ We are often not sure whether these elements are
meant to be taken literally (as real) or not.
➔ Magical Realism is used in Vertigo through the
representation of the boy.
➔ The boy is actually only the imagination of Anna and
Luke, though he is shown to be displaying behaviours
and actions of a normal boy.
➔ This makes the readers confused whether the boy is
real or not, because the truth of the boy is not
revealed until towards the end of the story.