The Golden Age is as much about gain as it is about loss.’
Do you agree?
(VCAA 2016 SAMPLE EXAM QUESTION)
Time taken (Planning + Writing + Proofreading and Editing) : 90 minutes approx.
In her delicate, historical yet romantic fiction novel ‘The Golden Age’ set in the bleak period of 1950s Perth, Australian novelist Joan London explores the unsettling poignancy within people during the period through her diverse range of ‘damaged’ characters who come from a past of intense internal and external suffering. Most of these characters, along their journey within the narrative gain multiple moments of surmise through forming intimate bonds with each other or finding and relieving their vocation. The novel however, overarchingly suggests to its readers that it is foremost about these characters learning to recuperate from their ‘broken’ lives, while some end up living in their ‘dark night’.
In ‘The Golden Age’, Frank gains through Sullivan and Elsa’s love and poetry, yet eventually is left ‘deserted’. Frank’s isolation from his family due to the tragic occurrence of polio, leaves him in a state of loneliness as he is sent to the IDB. This misfortune of his feels ignorable to Frank after he meets Sullivan, whom he considers a bliss, platonic ‘family’; with whom Frank finds solace and further develops his skill as a ‘poet’, which gives him ‘relief’ from everything else’. Furthermore, Sullivan being a polio patient himself allows Frank to relate to someone with a similar condition and sympathise with the world around him instead of ‘being snobby and critical’ of other people. Frank’s relationship with Elsa too is something that he unequivocally values, reflecting an improvement in his life. Frank is shown to ‘need’ Elsa; she flourishes his vocation, ‘poetry starts to flow when [Frank] sees Elsa’, Frank’s demeanour of reimagining and not ‘liking to talk about’ his dark past, the ‘ceiling’, which makes him question his past fades away due to the strength and trustworthiness that Frank has experiences with Elsa. As the narrative proceeds, he finds himself physically ‘healing’ alongside Elsa’s presence, suggesting the gain that characters receive during the narrative. However, at the cornerstone of the text, Frank’s gains however are overshadowed by disheartening loss throughout, depicted primarily through London’s use of symbolic gestures. Sullivan, an aspiration to Frank, soon dies, leaving Frank in despair and an aching feeling as if ‘he too had died’, inferring to Frank’s constant exposure to losing things in life. London furthers the suggestion of loss dominating over advancement in life through her epilogue titled ‘New York’ where she explicitly mentions ‘the death’ of Frank’s parents. Furtherly, Elsa’s son Jack, who arrives at Frank’s house represents Frank’s loss of ‘El-sa’, who he always ‘wanted to keep to himself’ and still yearns for her presence ‘in his poetry’, thus ending up lonely, portraying how Frank was always meant to be lonely and miserable, therefore signifying ‘The Golden Age’ as a novel portraying the theme of gain, yet more importantly and centrally showing loss.
‘The Golden Age’s’ running issue of the permanence of loss despite sparks of ‘light’ is further reflected through London’s character Sister Olive Penny. She too like Frank has a damaged past due to her husband Alan Penny’s death, and her lack of connection with her only considerable family; her daughter Elizabeth Ann. Amidst her crises, Sister Penny finds Meyer Gold in the hallways of The Golden Age hospice. Their similar discomforts in life such as losing things to war and disconnection from allows Sister Penny to find solace within Meyer Gold’s presence, showing little reluctance of accepting him as her ‘home’, suggesting the lessening of her intrinsic void that she has been battling by desperately sleeping with ‘policemen’. Her life is shown to have increasingly filled with ‘light’ and hope when she ‘ignores the policemen’ with whom she used to feel as if slowly ‘she was losing a part of her’ and ‘the children’ at the party, showing Penny’s regaining of innocence. While her joys appear frequently, Sister Penny’s life is still underscored by extreme loss and suffering as she can never really find any true family that she can be loved by when Meyer departs, and Sister Penny experiences a sinking feeling, ‘she’ll continue to miss [Meyer] forever’. Penny’s ultimate loss however is depicted through her unfortunate exit from ‘The Golden Age’ hospice where she had cultured her vocation ‘nursing’ and used to head back there whenever she felt empty, after two unacceptable incidents occur, after which everybody knew that ‘she had to leave’ forever Meyer, ‘The Golden Age Polio Convalescent Home’, and then continue to feel the solitary discomfort in her heart caused from her husband’s death, thus suggesting moreover that despite recuperation and a feeling of settlement too, Sister Penny too cascades under depressiveness and is dominated by loss.
The primacy of brief recovery but ultimate loss over improvement in ‘The Golden Age’ is demonstrated not only by London’s major characters, but also by Albert Sutton. The open gates at the sanitorium, symbolising freedom, provide Albert with a gleam of optimism that he can successfully ‘escape’ and go back home to his family, where ‘he would get better'from the unpleasant and trapping confines of the sanitorium where Albert supposedly ‘did not learn anything’. Every movement Albert makes throughout his escape is detailed by Joan London to imply the thrill and rare energy that he experiences from ‘sliding off his bed’ to ‘slowly put[ting] on his jacket’ and moving towards his new stage of recovery and delight in life. Despite his efforts, Albert gets ‘tired…falls asleep'. Even though he wakes up from his sleep, he soon collapses and ‘hurts his leg’, where polio had already affected him, inferring to Albert’s regression back to a life of treatment which he always had despised, where he would also possibly lose the love of his ‘family’, who he holds dear, hence leading to a regretful life. Albert’s loss not only is his loss, it also acts as a repercussion for the children at ‘The Golden Age’ hospice, who would then onwards no longer get to see open doors and the ‘outer world’, instead ‘have closed doors’, channelling into these children a continual remembrance of the cruelties of their ironically ‘special condition’. Albert Sutton hence, is another element of ‘The Golden Age’, a text that constantly emphasizes as itself being directed moreover about people and their adversities than their cherishes and gains.
Joan London shows the impacts that trauma has on people in ‘The Golden Age’, yet also delves into constructing a 1940’s Perth which shows that hope and gains are very much possible for people. Although this is substantial, London’s predominant focal point in her novel remains the bleak yet intimate exploration of loss, which she constantly suggests and reinforces through her astute placement of symbols and diverse range of characters that belong to reminiscently uncomfortable pasts, who even though experience moments of generosity, are somewhat deprived of true fulfilment of their ‘new’ lives. Ultimately, ‘The Golden Age’ communicates that recovery is very much a necessity, yet life sadly does not guarantee that significant losses can be conquered.
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