Picnic at Hanging Rock

The novel sets up a juxtaposition between civilization, which carries connotations of societal order and decorum, and the wilderness, which denotes wild lawlessness, gothic mystery, and violence. The novel’s action blurs the delineation between these spaces; civilized characters are drawn into nature’s wild spaces, and the chaos of the wild creeps into civilization.

Initially, the college is characterized as a civilized space—“an architectural anachronism in the Australian bush” (2). Inside, it is full of opulent European furnishings that attest to its colonial status; outside, orderly British-style gardens fend off the encroaching wilderness. Within the college, students and teachers alike are held to a rigid set of rules as enforced by the headmistress, Mrs. Appleyard, a figure who represents civilization at its most repressed.

In contrast, the wildness of the Australian landscape appears mysterious and incomprehensible to the colonizers. This sentiment is established in Mike’s reflection that “in England everything had been done before” (24), whereas in Australia “anything might happen” (24). He is referring here to Australia’s young colonial history; because the land remains relatively unexplored by colonizers, it is a “blank slate,” full of untapped potential.

Nature’s potential takes on a decidedly sinister quality in