Shakespeare (Motif)
Shakespeare's plays are motific in the play, serving as both the entry point and exit point of Gow's drama. Themes from Shakespeare's plays are represented in Gow's work with class, relationships, and death being prominent in Gow's story. However, the Shakespeare motif also has an added significance. Namely, by foregrounding drama in the play, Gow conditions us as an audience to think in a heightened sense about the performative nature of everyday human interactions. Moreover, we are conditioned to think about the constructed and artificially dramatic nature of Away itself.
Storm (Symbol)
A great storm occurs during Act 3 that ultimately causes the three families to come together on the beachside campground. The storm thus symbolizes the difficulties of each of the families, which ultimately are necessary in life in order to point us in the direction of the people who will and can support us through them. At the same time, the storm, in bringing back the fairies from Mendelssohn's play, is symbolic of an element of fantasy or the supernatural that is infused into the everyday. Such elements both heighten the imaginative glory of drama and deepen the blows when we are told of things like Tom's terminal illness in Act 4.
King Lear (Allegory)
Tom (or, depending on the version, another actor) reads the beginning of King Lear at the very end of the play. If Tom is the one reading the lines of the king who ultimately goes mad, the play might be thought of as a symbol that alludes to the fact that Tom will soon suffer similar hardships of body and mind. Even if it is not Tom who ultimately reads from Lear, however, the play itself is a kind of allegory for Away. When talking about the main themes of King Lear, Miss Latrobe is also implicitly talking about the themes of Away in a veiled way that readers are nonetheless sure to appreciate and notice.
Actors and Actresses (Motif)
Actors and actresses are an important motif in Away. Whether it be Kim Novak, Laurence Olivier, or Chips Rafferties, actors and actresses in the play come to represent ideals of beauty and youth, while also underscoring the play's emphasis on performativity. This is why, when Roy and Coral are at their impasse, he fails to notice her resemblance to Kim Novak and why, when Coral is not being her authentic self with Rick in Act Three, Scene 1, he thinks she resembles Dame Pattie (the wife of an Australian prime minister, who was not an actress). Note, too, that Tom is only compared to famous actors before the audience knows of his terminal illness, which shatters the fantasy.
Shells (Symbol)
In Act 5, Scene 1, Coral produces a number of shells from her hat and shows them to Roy, who then kisses them and her. In an obvious way, the shells are symbolic of the figurative shell that Coral has come out of in order to return to Roy and grow as a person. As such, they are symbolic of the lessons and fruits we can take from our time in nature. Roy acknowledges these truths, and this is why he kisses both Coral and the shells together at the play's end.
