Deleuzian Time and the Elemental Rhythms of Nature in Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (1967)

Abstract

ABSTRACT The present article offers a Deleuzian reading of Picnic at Hanging Rock (Joan Lindsay, 1967) that does not start by analysing binary oppositions, but rather construes the space and, more specifically, its synthesis in and through time as processes of “different/ciation” and “becoming”. The article probes into Deleuze’s idea of the first synthesis of time in the novel. Time can be read as a synthesis, a contraction of differences in repetition. This resonates with the “elemental rhythms” of nature the novel overtly identifies as constitutive of the natural space. These rhythms are in turn projected onto different fictional levels, so much so that the novel reads like an organic spread of the patterns of nature into the very structure of the narrative. Victorian identities and cultures attempt to resist the spread of this pattern, albeit to no avail. Finally, the spread of the said pattern reveals the possibility of a new virtual set of relational tools for the self to encounter the other via processes of different/ciation and becoming.