In the breathless stillness of a tropical afternoon, when the air was hot and heavy, and the sky brazen and cloudless, the shadow of the Malabar lay solitary on the surface of the glittering sea.
Following a Prologue, this is the opening line of the novel. Chapter One, titled “The Prison Ship” quickly outlines the overall emotional tenor of the story to follow. It is strangely claustrophobic despite describing an outdoor scene. That scene depicts imagery associated with a dark foreboding heaviness underlining the concept of isolation and alienation which pervades through the text.
The notorious criminal, Rufus Dawes, the desperado of Port Arthur, the wild beast whom the Gazette had judged not fit to live, had just entered the witness-box. He was a man of thirty, in the prime of life, with a torso whose muscular grandeur not even the ill-fitting yellow jacket could altogether conceal, with strong, embrowned, and nervous hands, an upright carriage, and a pair of fierce, black eyes that roamed over the Court hungrily.
This passage occurs at almost literally the halfway mark of the novel. It is the finest and most thorough physical description of the novel’s protagonist and conveys a deeper sense of his personality as expressed through the outward manifestation. Note that the words “notorious,” “desperado” and “wild beast” are situated in a way that could be both sincere or ironic, though almost certainly not both simultaneously. The particular intent of meaning on the part of the author will have become clear by the time a reader reaches this descriptive passage, but it is still more than obvious that a reader can somewhat confidently take either interpretation and not be entirely wrong. The key to choosing, however, may lie in another set of words: “prime of life,” “muscular grandeur” and “upright carriage.”
The south-east coast of Van Diemen’s Land, from the solitary Mewstone to the basaltic cliffs of Tasman’s Head, from Tasman’s Head to Cape Pillar, and from Cape Pillar to the rugged grandeur of Pirates’ Bay, resembles a biscuit at which rats have been nibbling. Eaten away by the continual action of the ocean which, pouring round by east and west, has divided the peninsula from the mainland of the Australasian continent—and done for Van Diemen’s Land what it has done for the Isle of Wight—the shore line is broken and ragged.
A greater sense of what is being described here may arrive with the information that Van Diemen’s Land underwent a name change in the mid-1850’s. What was Van Diemen’s Land to those Europeans arriving in Australia previous to that is much better known as Tasmania. In the Introduction to his book on the history of the Van Diemen’s Land, author James Boyce asserts that the perception of prison life on Tasmania held by most of the mainstream today was cultivated almost exclusively by Clarke’s description of it in his novel. Boyce admits that much of the storyline—even the most outlandish part involving cannibals—was based on real life incidents, but then goes on to remind readers that they should take the narrator’s depiction of Van Diemen’s Land with a grain of salt as the author only once visited the island and a very brief time. He sums up with a harsh critique of the author’s work: “He did not know the island, and it showed.” In Clarke’s defense, however, it is also worth remembering that this a work of fiction (no matter how much it may be based on fact) and not a work of journalistic non-fiction.
“Oh, it’s a stunning climate, and nothing to do. Just the place for you. There’s a regular little colony there. All the scandals in Van Diemen’s Land are hatched at Port Arthur.”
While the island as a whole comes under scrutiny in the novel—and the novel comes scrutiny by critics like Boyce—it is really the infamous town of Port Arthur which is the focus of the perception of prison life as conveyed by Clarke that is suspect in the eyes of those like Boyce. Maurice’s view of the sinister implications engendered by the goings-on in Port Arthur is shaped by virtue of not being a prisoner there. So, naturally, he would hold a different perspective. The lieutenant aboard the “The Prison Ship” of Chapter One represents the prison experience on Van Diemen’s Land from the outsider looking in. It lacks genuine emotional understanding and instead contains an almost bemused—certainly detached—sensibility.
“God’s terrible far from Port Arthur.”
Of course, the perspective of those actually convicted, punished and force to endure the harshness of prison life in Port Arthur see things with a sensibility that is much less detached, much more emotional and anything but bemusing.
