Picnic at Hanging Rock

These chapters explore Traumatic Stress and Existential Anxiety as the characters struggle to rebuild their lives after the picnic at Hanging Rock. At the college, the girls struggle under the yoke of discipline; their distress and grief is ignored by teachers who themselves are struggling in the wake of the tragedy.

In particular, Sara becomes a lightning rod for Mrs. Appleyard’s frustration and stress over the mystery: “The small pointed face was somehow the symbol of the nameless malady from which every inmate of the College was suffering in varying degrees” (104). Mrs. Appleyard’s cruelty—an expression of her own feelings of impotence and anxiety—is illustrated when she cancels Sara’s beloved art lessons and taunts Sara with the idea that she may need to return to “an institution” if her guardian doesn’t pay her fees. Distressed by the prospect of going back to an orphanage, Sara struggles to focus in class, spending her nights either “wide awake, staring into the dreadful dark” and thinking of Miranda’s death (110), or dreaming about Miranda. This results in “countless order marks for inattention in class” and “half an hour strapped to a blackboard in the gymnasium for ‘slouching’” (130). She clearly needs love and support, but instead is threatened and harshly disciplined. Sara’s suicide is foreshadowed in her teacher’s cruelty toward her.

The trauma of the disappearances is metaphorically represented as a dark stain: “The pattern of the picnic continued to darken and spread” (123). It only increases with the passing of time, especially at the school, where the girls are expected to return to their normal routines with no news of their friends and teacher and are given no outlet for their feelings. Their discontent is expressed in the New Zealand sister’s cry: “Nobody in this rathole ever tells us anything!” (140). The girls’ distress only finds expression when Irma returns: “[S]moldering passion long banked down under the weight of grey disciplines and secret fears bursts into flames” (139).

Elements of the wild space enter the ordinarily controlled and disciplined college as “the shadow of the rock” seems to grow behind Irma (138). Imagery characterizes the girls as wild beasts, utterly uncontrolled and vicious: “the hysterical schoolgirls with faces distorted by passion, the streaming locks and clawlike hands” (139). The novel suggests that the wildness present in everyone—particularly upper-class women, who are especially repressed by society—is unleashed by the Gothic wilderness of Hanging Rock. Civilized Versus Wild Spaces is a pivotal theme throughout the novel; in this scene, these spaces blur and overlap for the first time, which terrifies Irma and the teachers. Predictably, however, when Miss Lumley observes the scene, she sees only a shocking lack of decorum, nothing that “the girls were making a disgraceful exhibition of themselves” (143). Female Propriety and Decorum continues to take precedence at the college, at the cost of the students’ well-being.

Similarly, when the police detective suggests that Marion and Miranda might have been abducted and molested or raped, Mrs. Appleyard is disgusted, replying primly: “They were exceptionally intelligent and well-behaved girls who would never have allowed any familiarity from strangers” (102). The detective problematizes Mrs. Appleyard’s snobbery and implicit victim blaming (an extension of Mrs. Appleyard’s ridiculous logic is that women of a different social class would have “allowed” themselves to be raped) when he points out that propriety—or lack thereof—is totally irrelevant: “‘As far as that goes,’ said the detective blandly, ‘most young girls would object to being raped’” (102). Mrs. Appleyard’s response illustrates that she continues to prioritize Appleyard College’s reputation over the well-being of the girls.  

Previously, Mrs. Appleyard was confident that she could ward off evil and disrepute by strictly controlling her world, as symbolized by the austere college and neat gardens. However, scandal, mystery, violence, and chaos abruptly enter the world of the college, and Mrs. Appleyard begins to lose control of herself as she loses control of her world. This is apparent in her declining physical appearance, noted by many around her: “[F]or a moment [Constable Bumpher] wondered if the old girl was going off her head. Her face was an unpleasant mottled red” (102). The impact of the picnic on Mrs. Appleyard’s psyche is further illustrated in her drinking. Irma senses Mrs. Appleyard’s loss of self-control and power, and tells her confidently that she does not want to continue her education at Appleyard College. As Mrs. Appleyard fails to be treated with the deference she is accustomed to, her unusual behavior escalates, foreshadowing her suicide at Hanging Rock, the source of the events that caused her life to spiral out of control.

Time continues to function as a motif that serves to illustrate the unreal world of Hanging Rock, which exists outside of the world’s laws of time and practicality. The doctor uses the metaphor of a clock to describe Irma’s memory, which will not ever recover the events of her week on Hanging Rock: “like a clock that stops under a certain set of conditions and refuses ever to go again beyond a particular point” (112). Hanging Rock is a space that exists off the clock face—events undertaken there are done so in a separate sphere that is inaccessible in regular life. It is implied that Mike is haunted by the confusing half memories of Hanging Rock—Irma may have scratched him viciously on his face, and taunted him up the rock with manic laughter, leading to his injury. He cannot entirely suppress these haunting memories despite the pleasantness of their relationship after the rescue, and this causes him to abruptly ceases his courtship with Irma: “I’m afraid I won’t be seeing you to say good-bye” (129).