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The apparently unsatisfying conclusion of d’Alpuget’s novel is an important element to
her narrative which is pinned it to the cultural theme, which underlies so much of Australia’s
literature, of the sense of place and Self and exile. The return of Alex to Sinclaire is, as
Annegret Maack notes, fouled by being the result of political intrigue. Maack argues further
that ‘es bedeutet aber auch die Rückkehr zum Clan, den sie versteht, und Rückkehr zu sich
selbst, denn Anthony ist ihr Abbild’ (Maack, 130). This argument that Alex’s kiss with
Anthony represents a return to the fold of her clan is hard to dismiss in terms of Australian
tradition, and could be thus read as the final brutalisation of Alex Wheatfield. It seems,
nevertheless, an extremely cruel and self-denying return, especially in light of the history of
their incestuous relationship, which Anthony, to protect his inheritance, never admitted, and
Alex, to protect him, never betrayed. Bruce Bennett’s observation is that Sinclaire’s betrayal
of Alex with the false ‘confession’ of Maruli, through which he believes he is saving her,
indicates how he shares
the self-deception of other Australians in the novel, whose ideals of ‘civilized’
behavior mask their self-interest, fear and misunderstanding of the
multitudinousness and complexity of South-East Asia, from which they must
retreat into a sterile indifference (Bennett, 1991, 204).
These two conclusions are justified to a point, but the trouble is that they both seem to be too
satisfied with the outcome. Maack’s interpretation sees Alex’s final choice as a sort of ‘return
of the prodigal daughter’, yet it is a return to a hellish landscape which, while certainly in the
tradition of Australian literature, does not fit d’Alpuget’s voice very well; Bennett’s perception
that Sinclaire believes he is saving Alex misses the point that he is consciously saving her only
for himself. The self-deception is no more shared with Alex than are his other values.
Alex Wheatfield is no Judith Wilkes, who does finally choose to return to the
comfortable, materialist fold and has reconciled furthering her career and even maintaining her
identity at the cost of losing her young children—a thoroughly unfathomable act for any
mother, even in the feminist-led late 20 th century. Yet both are forced into positions where
there are extremely high pressures for the activation of racial stereotypes they would otherwise
suppress; as Bodenhausen and Macrae argue, resisting such normative pressures for
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