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The Orchard by Drusilla Modjeska
Mind map of conventions in The Orchard
Context
Character of narrator
Others characters
Structure
Life Writing Conventions & The Orchard
Analysis of Text and Language in The Orchard
Mind Map - Relationships. The Orchard
The Orchard - page references
Bibliography
Mind map of conventions in The Orchard
Context
Drusilla Modjeska’s The Orchard published in 1994 is informed by feminist ideology 
and primarily concerned with issues relating to women as artists and independent individuals. The text uses details of the past, present and possible future of four generations of women related by blood and friendship to explore Modjeska’s thematic concerns that are further developed through reference to the works of other female artists such as Artemisia Gentileschi (1660 – Italy and England), Grace Cossington-Smith and Stella Bowen , (20th century Australian and Europe). References to the writers such as Ford Maddox Ford, Jean Rhys and Virginia Woolf also demonstrate the pressures and difficulties faced by women especially artists as seen in Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles.
Character of narrator
Modjeska first person narrative is permeated by a concealing of self and by the withholding of information. In the ‘The Adultery Factor’ Modjeska uses Louise’s story of the adulterous affair written in the third person to reveal withheld aspects of the narrator’s past and represents herself as less than heroic character. It is only in ‘Sight and Solitude’ an objective account of her struggle with a temporary loss of sight and ‘The Winterbourne‘, Modjeska’s visit to Carn, an exclusive girls’ school in Wessex, that she reveals details of her difficulties and prejudices in early adolescence and her enduring passion for gardening. However, she subtly balances her perspective by contrasting her memories with Clara’s unbiased observations and the memories of another old girl, star student and ex head girl Jane Carey whom she meets as an adult. It is only in the final section of the narrative ‘The Orchard’ that Modjeska achieves a sense of belonging and agency among friends in the Australian bush.
Others characters
Ettie
Ettie is a fellow artist, reclusive and nurturing of the three other women. She is the archetypal wise matriarch and moral yardstick of the narrative but believably flawed. Ettie’s commitment to maintaining a balance between nature and design is symbolic of the artist’s creativity.
Louise
Her character contributes to mosaic of multicultural Australia as the daughter of immigrant parents and a successful modern woman. She reaffirms the positive aspects of committed heterosexual relationships within the context of supportive network of women.
Clara
Clara is Ettie’s granddaughter and a strand in Modjeska’s thematic focus on the importance of the past and truth and a subtle reflection on those cultural values that endure and what do not. Modjeska reflects on biographer/ auto biographer’s dilemma of revealing or concealing shared secrets in Clara’s pursuit of the truth of her relationship with Ettie.
Mrs Astrid Stuart Parker (the Asp)
She is the former house mistress of Carn, victim of Victorian values and a foil to Ettie. Modjeska uses the archetypal wicked Queen of fable in her early characterisation. It is only in ‘The Winterbourne’ that her biased adolescent perspective is balanced by Jane Carey’s realistic and compassionate perspective. This further withholding information, re enforces her thesis of compassion and objective judgments.
Thea Linton
Linton is the current Head mistress and former head girl of Carn. She is two dimensional and the epitome of class conscious, conservative values. Modjeska’s uses her character to make her case against imperialistic attitudes and petty mindedness.
Mrs Glossop
Mrs Glossop is the house mistress of Carn, a positive and benign figure. A foil to the Asp, she epitomizes the shift in values and attitudes that have permeated even the bastions of conservative upper class England.
Frances Petersen
Peterson is the heroine of Modjeska’s story of Carn, free spirited and non conformist the product of a really liberal education by her father, a botanist. She is proof an independent spirit could survive Carn and succeed.
Jane Carey
Carey is a successful academic and former head girl of Carn and the Asp’s star pupil. Independent and successful, her character contributes to the positive aspects of Carn and Modjeska’s narrative strategy of presenting contrasting perspectives and allowing the reader to judge.
Hannah Morgan
Morgan is the scholarship girl, a gifted musician and fellow misfit who suffers possible lasting damage from her Carn experience. She is part of the narrator’s story to Clara. The very brief account of Hannah’s death includes the suggestion of suicide.
Henrietta
Henrietta is the ‘henny-penny’ of the narrator’s childhood nightmare of Carn, another victim.
Structure
Modjeska’s choice of part memoir, part essay, part fiction enables her to explore issues relating to women. The Orchard explores the lives and relationship of the intergenerational group of women and the ramifications of motherhood, marriage, adultery, loneliness and self-knowledge. Like Auster and Blixen, Modjeska uses a variety of text types interwoven with sustained commentaries on female artists and allusions including stories: personal – ‘The Adultery Factor’, allegorica l – ‘The Handless Maiden’, anecdotes - the loopy girl, Ettie’s adulterous affair with Jock and letters.
Knowledge and understanding of the past is the key to a sense of identity. Issues relating to mother-daughter relationships and female sexuality are central to the text and reflect the late 20th century context against a context of enduring female repression explored through a cross section of women artists over time.
Modjeska develops her themes through deferral and accretion of linguistic and epistemological interpretations. The text contrasts two settings to develop her themes: Australia and Wessex in England. Although Modjeska includes interludes in Sydney, Melbourne and London the dominant motif is the orchard. The narrative begins and repeatedly returns to an orchard in the Blue Mountains that belongs to Modjeska’s friend, the octogenarian Ettie. Here the characters tell their stories and seek refuge. The orchard is as an expression of female creativity untrammelled by constrains of an essentially patriarchal society. In ‘Sight and Sound’ Modjeska explores the ramification of her loss of sight and like Auster reflects on role of solitude and writing in self-discovery. She too uses intrusions, a non-linear narrative and inter-textual references to explore her re-evaluation of her life, her relationships and memories.
In ‘The Winterbourne’ Modjeska reveals her passionate love for a small garden she cultivated as an escape from the isolation and repressions of Carn, ironically represented as a matriarchal society dedicated to educating young women which rigidly endorsed imperialism, elitism and Victorian values of decorum and conformity. Her sense of loss when the Asp had her garden uprooted is balanced by the concluding section of the text which returns to the motif of the orchard as a reaffirmation of female agency and the power of nature, and this orchard becomes a symbol of unity and balance, shared by Modjeska, a former lover, Louise and her partner.
Anecdote
The text begins with an anecdote from Ettie’s past about the ‘loopy girl’ and the burial of her illegitimate baby thereby foregrounding Modjeska’s central concern with mother-child relationships and female creativity. Ettie’s youthful and illicit love affair with Jock, a professional artist, while she is an art student and his model develops this theme without providing any moral commentary. Implicit in the anecdote is the relationship between women; Jock’s wife Helena is a friend of Ettie’s who by adopting the child deprives Ettie of the bond between mother and daughter. Ettie pays a further price, she gives up art.
Also woven into the narrative is the relationship between Ettie’s beloved granddaughter Clara and her lover Tom. A fragmented account that subtly compares the two women and the context in which they live, suggests that Clara’s decision to leave Tom and pursue her own artistic future in New York is not as liberated at it might seem. Modjeska creates a counterpoint to Ettie’s past and a sense of history by contrasting Clara’s and Tom’s accounts of the breakdown of their relationship and Clara’s decision to pursue a career in art in New York at the invitation of a man who is possibly the father of her unborn child.
Allegory
Modjeska resists alienation and the postmodern aesthetic to commit to humanist values of individual and collective morality, seen in the women nurturing of each other and the gardens. As in Auster, the writer is an interpreter whose authority and authenticity rises from memory and personal perception to become the key to a stable, independent and fulfilled self. Significantly, the narrator concludes the narrative with a reference to the tale of the handless maiden. It is only when through her courage, ingenuity and resourcefulness that the girl re-grows her own hands, the Princely gift of silver hands has merely delayed her freedom. ‘…. is the story at the heart of every incident, every story I have told you’. (p.264)
Allusions
Although The Orchard is not as reliant on the fragmented and plural as Auster’s text Modjeska also uses images, reconstructs her past, provides insight into her personality to develop her themes.
The paintings of Ettie by Jock and Gerhard are contrasted in their artistic merit and the insight they provide into the personalities of the sitter and the artist. Modjeska builds her insight into the two images gradually until she shares the realization that negative and positive aspects of Ettie’s character are captured in the paintings.
Similarly, Clara’s charcoal sketch of the silver hands featured in the allegorical story of the ‘Handless Maiden’ re-enforces the importance of self sufficiency and independence while representing the unique bond between the two women.
Artemisia Gentileschi’s self portrait and her rendering of Judith Slaying Holofernes is another motif Modjeska uses throughout the text to develop her advocacy for female agency. Modjeska contrasts and compares the works of Grace Cossington–Smith, Stella Bowen and Gentileschi repeatedly to develop her concerns in the context of male female relationships and the role of women creative characters over time. Gentileschi overcomes the trauma of rape to win acclaim, Cossington Smith achieves her vision within the confines of suburban Australian household and Bowen after sacrificing her career for Madox Ford finally discovers herself as an artist. Again Modjeska encourages the responder to form their judgment of the patriarchal society while using the inter-textual references to female artists and mother child relationships in an accretion of evidence to explore her inner journey of self discovery and creativity.
Symbols
Like Auster, Modjeska uses solitude symbolized by the loss of sight and her self-imposed isolation to explore the pursuit of self and connection with others. This informs her use of significant objects and places: Ettie’s orchard, the house and the veranda, Ettie’s portraits, Clara’s flat in Kings Cross, her charcoal sketch of the silver hands, the angel Ettie gives her, Carn, the Winterbourne and her garden.
The search for self is develops in references to historical events and other artists. The personal and historical past are counterpointed to suggest what values and attitudes have changed and have remained unaltered: WW2, the past of the four women, including Helena ‘s adoption of Dorothy, references to prominent female artists, Bowen, Gentileschi, Cossington Smith and Virginia Woolf.
Life Writing Conventions & The Orchard
- a concern for ‘truth telling’ and concealment
- mixture of fact and fiction
- memory & relationships– insight into past, present, future
- place & context – historical, political and cultural
- privileged ideas and perspectives & voice – sense of person
- focus on fact
- allusions to religion, art and literature
- memory & relations – insight into past, present, future
- writing and reflection to understand connections between past, present and future
Analysis of Text and Language in The Orchard
In your analysis comment on:
- the orchard as a haven for creativity an escape from the pressure of progress
- peace and regeneration from mutual cooperation and respect especially between women and artists
- the arts and nature as contributing to a sense of self, women achieving a sense of autonomy
- writing and reflection as sources of wisdom and self understanding
- isolation and alienation behind facades of success and respectability
- satire of England’s social elite - positions of privilege
- the historical past contextualising the present – references to the oppression inhabitants of Wessex, their culture and their land.
- a variety of text types, stories, allegory, pictures, fables, anecdotes, myth.
When responding to the prescribed text
Refer to the Syllabus requirements, Prescription rubric and HSC Markers’ comments. Life Writing over the years has been subject to contextual influences.
Integrate the ‘how’ of the language in your comments on narrative structure, characterisation, setting, mood, themes, pace and tension. HSC Markers regularly remark on the ability of better students to critically consider the concepts and evaluate how the texts represent their concerns. The more sophisticated, informed and fluent responses demonstrate control of their own language, a detailed knowledge of the set texts and their own related material that they integrate and interpret in keeping with the requirements of each question.
The creative writing component of the HSC exam should also reflect an extensive knowledge of the genre, the set texts and independent research as reflected in the student’s original imaginative response to the question. Prepared answers rarely have the sophistication or relevancy required for Extension 1.
Student activity:
- How does Modjeska contrast the characters to develop her concerns with self knowledge and acceptance, a sense of community and the development of the creative spirit? Respond in detail and include an analysis of her narrative techniques.
- Using The Orchard and one other prescribed text as examples discuss the validity of a genre study. Research Modjeska and The Orchard. Analyse and evaluate how and why Modjeska combines memoir, autobiography and fiction.
- The Orchard addresses enduring and context specific issues. Discuss with detailed reference to the text and two related texts.
- Write a fable or an allegory which explores some of the issues that inform The Orchard.
Mind Map – Relationships. The Orchard
The Orchard – page references
| Technique/Convention | Example | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| A concern for ‘truth telling’ and concealment. Ethical issues of revealing another’s secrets. | Ettie withholding the truth of their relationship from Clara, her influence in Clara’s life. Helena, Jock and Ettie withholding the truth of their relationship from Dorothy. |
13-14, 25-28,58-60,99-102,151-156, |
| Mixture of fact and fiction Use of third person subjective narrative, withheld information. |
The Adultery Factor, the truth of the affair in which the narrator was engaged. | 28 -34,40-46,60-65,71-72,76-78,81-82,86-90,94-97 |
| Allusions to religion, art and literature. Focus on women creative artists over time. | Catholic saints 129-131,146-147 Literature 131-133, Virginia Woolf 145 -147 Artists: Cossington Smith 135-137, Artemisia Gentileschi 141-144 Portraits of, by and for Ettie 158-159 |
|
| Focus on fact. Balance between negative and positive perspectives to provide credibility and a balanced view. | History of Wessex, suppression and exploitation of native population. | 181-184 |
| Narrator’s perspective of the administration at Carn is contrasted with Mrs Glossop and Jane’s more unbiased views. | 166-180, 186 -197,206-213, The Winterbourne 216-225 Jane’s view 228-241 |
|
| Memory & relationships– insight into past, present, future. | Narrator’s relationship with Frances, Hannah, Henrietta, Thea and the Asp. | 198 -203 Frances’ letter 241-247 |
| Place & Context – historical, political and cultural | Life in contemporary Australia-Sydney and Melbourne, city and bush Ettie’s garden. |
Ettie’s garden -150-151 Narrator’s garden at Carn -216-225 Narrator’s orchard 254-260 |
| Italy and England in the seventeenth century to early twenties Virginia Woolf, Stella Bowen, Cossington- Smith. | Artemisia Gentileschi 16-18,78-81,261-262 Bowen 37-40, 50-54,251-253,261 |
|
| Privileged ideas and perspectives & voice – sense of person. | Contrast between elitist perspective of Carn in the past, Victorian values - Liberated feminist and humanist values. |
190,203-205,206-211 |
| Writing and reflection to understand connections between past, present and future. | Ettie’s relationship with Jock Parallels between Ettie’s and Clara’s lives. |
6, 8,10-13, 15 |
| Use of a variety of text types, story, references to biographical data to develop themes. Allegory |
The loopy girl and her baby, 6 The handless maiden, 90, 264-268 |
|
| Solitude and Sight symbolism, first person narrative | 107-127 |
Bibliography
- Elliott, H. ‘Woman Bent on Exploring the Big Issues’. The Canberra Times 16 October 1994 newspaper issue.
- Hicks, I. ‘Modjeska Takes the Kibble Prize’ criticism biography
- Author: The Sydney Morning Herald 5 April 1995 newspaper issue.
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