Plot Overview (HSC SSCE English Standard): Revision Notes
Plot Overview
Away by Michael Gow is a powerful Australian play that was first performed in 1986. The play unfolds over the 1967-68 Christmas holidays and follows three different Australian families as they take their coastal holidays. Throughout their journeys, each family confronts serious personal struggles including grief, social class tensions, and terminal illness. These challenges force the characters to face difficult truths about death, what it means to live authentically, and how to find reconciliation with themselves and others.
The play's setting during the Christmas holidays is significant because it contrasts the expectation of joy and celebration with the darker realities each family faces. The holiday becomes a catalyst for transformation rather than mere relaxation.
Setting the scene
The play is set during a transformative time in Australian history. The 1960s was a period when Australia was dealing with the Vietnam War, changing social attitudes, and evolving class structures. Gow uses the traditional Australian summer holiday as the backdrop for exploring these deeper human experiences, showing how even moments of intended relaxation can become crucibles for personal transformation.
Historical Context:
The 1967-68 period was particularly significant as Australia was deeply divided over the Vietnam War. The war brought death into many Australian homes, making the play's themes of grief and loss especially resonant for contemporary audiences. Additionally, post-war migration had created a more diverse Australian society with new tensions around class and identity.
Act 1: School play and holiday plans
The play begins in an unusual setting: backstage after a school performance of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. This opening is significant because it introduces us to the three central families and immediately establishes the themes of performance, illusion, and reality that run throughout the play.
Tom's family: Harry, Vic, and Tom
Tom's parents, Harry and Vic, are working-class English migrants who celebrate their son's performance with great enthusiasm. However, their joy masks a devastating secret: Tom is suffering from terminal leukaemia. The family's cheerful exterior hides the profound grief and fear they are experiencing. They plan to spend their holidays camping at various beaches, reflecting their modest financial means but also their desire for simplicity and closeness as a family during Tom's remaining time.
The Power of Secrets:
Tom's parents know about his terminal diagnosis, but Tom himself may or may not be fully aware. This creates a constant tension throughout the play - their forced cheerfulness becomes increasingly difficult to maintain. This mirrors how families often try to protect loved ones from painful truths, even when this protection creates its own kind of suffering.
Gwen's family: Gwen, Jim, and Meg
This middle-class family is marked by tension and conflict. Gwen is preoccupied with social status and material concerns, which leads her to sneer at Tom's family for being poor. The family argues over forgotten Christmas gifts, which reveals Gwen's tendency towards passive-aggressive behaviour. Their daughter Meg is beginning to rebel against her mother's classist attitudes. The family plans to stay at a caravan park, representing their comfortable but not extravagant lifestyle.
Gwen's obsession with the forgotten presents serves as a symbol throughout the play. The missing gifts represent her deeper anxieties about perfection, control, and maintaining appearances. This seemingly trivial concern reveals how people often fixate on small material problems to avoid confronting larger emotional truths.
Roy and Coral's family
Headmaster Roy and his wife Coral appear distant and disconnected from the celebrations. Coral is in a catatonic state (meaning she is unresponsive and appears emotionally frozen) due to the traumatic death of their son in the Vietnam War. This family's grief is so profound that Coral cannot engage with the world around her. They plan to holiday at a luxury Gold Coast resort, though this expensive setting will not protect them from their emotional pain.
The act ends with each family revealing their different holiday destinations, which foreshadows how their paths will eventually cross and intersect.
Act 2: Separate struggles
In this act, we see each family dealing with their problems in isolation. The physical separation of the families mirrors their emotional disconnection from understanding and healing.
Gwen, Jim, and Meg at the caravan park
The tension within this family escalates dramatically. Gwen's obsession with the forgotten presents becomes a symbol of her deeper anxieties about status and perfection. Her passive-aggressive behaviour creates a toxic atmosphere. Meg increasingly challenges her mother's materialistic values and snobbish attitudes towards people from different social classes. The arguments grow more vicious as the holiday progresses, showing how Gwen's need for social validation is destroying her family relationships.
Coral and Roy at the Gold Coast resort
At the supposedly luxurious resort, Coral's mental state deteriorates further. She wanders aimlessly in a zombie-like manner, disturbing other guests who cannot understand her behaviour. Her grief manifests in unexpected and troubling ways. On New Year's Eve, she kisses a honeymooner named Rick, which represents her desperate attempt to connect with life and joy. Roy, unable to cope with his wife's condition, threatens to have her undergo electroshock therapy, showing his frustration and misguided attempt to fix her through force rather than understanding.
Grief and Trauma:
Coral's catatonic state represents a complete psychological break. The death of her son in Vietnam has severed her connection to reality and hope. Roy's threat of electroshock therapy reveals the era's limited understanding of trauma and mental health, as well as his own helplessness in the face of his wife's pain. This storyline reflects how many Australian families struggled with Vietnam War losses without adequate support systems.
Harry, Vic, and Tom camping
Tom's family moves from beach to beach, camping modestly. Harry and Vic constantly encourage Tom to act happy, trying to maintain a facade of normalcy. However, in private moments, they share the burden of knowing about Tom's diagnosis. Their simple camping lifestyle reflects both their financial situation and their attempt to make the most of their time together. The beach setting becomes symbolic of their desire for peace and natural simplicity.
Act 3: Storm convergence
A powerful storm serves as the catalyst that brings all three families together. In dramatic literature, storms often symbolise chaos, revelation, and transformation, and Gow uses this device to force the characters out of their isolated bubbles.
The Storm as Literary Device:
The storm is a classic dramatic technique that Gow borrows from Shakespeare, particularly King Lear where the storm on the heath represents both external chaos and internal psychological turmoil. Just as Lear's mental breakdown coincides with the natural storm, the tempest in Away forces all the characters to confront truths they have been avoiding.
The storm's impact
The massive storm destroys the caravan park where Gwen's family is staying, forcing them to flee and seek shelter. By chance, they stumble upon the secluded beach where Tom's family is camping. This convergence is not just physical but represents the breaking down of social barriers and pretences.
Private confessions and revelations
With the families brought together, private truths begin to emerge. Harry confides in Jim about Tom's terminal illness, sharing the burden that has been weighing on him. This moment of vulnerability breaks through class barriers, as Jim must confront something far more serious than Gwen's material concerns. Vic counsels Gwen about the brevity of life, offering wisdom born from her own painful experience. Meg learns about Tom's fate, which profoundly affects her understanding of what truly matters. Coral, having escaped from Roy's control, arrives at the campsite disguised as an artist, beginning her own journey towards healing.
Key Scene: Harry's Confession to Jim
When Harry reveals Tom's terminal illness to Jim, it represents a crucial moment of cross-class connection. Jim, who has been caught up in Gwen's trivial concerns about forgotten presents and social status, suddenly confronts the reality of a family losing their child. This revelation shifts his perspective entirely, making him realize how meaningless his wife's material obsessions are in the face of real tragedy. The confession also shows Harry's need to share this unbearable knowledge with someone outside his immediate family.
Act 4: Beach epiphanies
The beach setting becomes a space where characters experience significant personal revelations and transformations. The word epiphany means a moment of sudden insight or understanding, and each character experiences their own breakthrough.
Tom and Meg's difficult moment
Tom, knowing his time is limited, propositions Meg for sex, using the phrase "before I go" to reveal his terminal condition. This moment is both tragic and uncomfortable, showing Tom's desperate attempt to experience life before it ends. Meg refuses, which causes her to withdraw emotionally. This scene demonstrates the complex emotions surrounding mortality and how difficult it can be for young people to process the reality of death.
Understanding Tom's Actions:
Tom's proposition to Meg is not meant to be romantic or appropriate - it's a desperate attempt by a dying teenager to experience adult life and connection before it's too late. His use of the phrase "before I go" forces Meg to confront the reality of his impending death directly. This uncomfortable scene shows how terminal illness affects young people's attempts to have normal experiences and relationships.
Coral and Tom's connection
Despite their age difference, Coral and Tom form a special bond through creating and performing theatrical pieces together. Both are dealing with death in different ways: Tom is facing his own mortality while Coral is consumed by grief over her son's death. Their collaborative play-making becomes a form of therapy and expression for both of them.
Gwen's transformation
Through her conversations with Vic, Gwen begins to soften and change. She admits to her past fears about poverty, revealing that her classism and materialism stem from her own insecurities and desire to distance herself from hardship. This admission represents an important step towards self-awareness and growth.
Gwen's transformation is particularly significant because it shows that even deeply ingrained behaviors can change when confronted with genuine human suffering. Vic's wisdom, born from living with the knowledge of Tom's impending death, gives her a moral authority that breaks through Gwen's defenses. This demonstrates how proximity to real tragedy can shift our priorities away from superficial concerns.
Jim's rejection of conformity
Jim takes a symbolic action by burning a list of complaints from other campers. This act represents his rejection of petty social conformity and the realisation that worrying about what others think is meaningless in the face of real human struggles like terminal illness and grief.
Roy's search
Roy arrives at the beach searching for Coral, setting up the final act's resolution.
Act 5: Talent show and resolutions
The final act brings the play to its emotional climax through performance and reconciliation. The New Year's talent quest becomes the stage for the play's most important scene.
The Stranger on the Shore
Tom and Coral perform a piece called The Stranger on the Shore. In this performance, a mermaid transforms herself to join her dead sailor lover, then reverts back to her original form. This story carries deep symbolic meaning:
- The mermaid's transformation represents the desire to be reunited with lost loved ones
- Her reversion back symbolises the acceptance that death is final and the living must continue
- The performance represents grief's necessary release and the importance of acknowledging loss while still choosing to live
Analyzing the Performance:
The Stranger on the Shore works on multiple symbolic levels simultaneously:
For Coral: The mermaid represents her desire to join her dead son, to transform herself into something that can exist in his world (death). Her reversion back to mermaid form represents her acceptance that she must continue living, that she cannot and should not follow him into death.
For Tom: As the performer, he helps Coral work through her grief while simultaneously accepting his own fate. Creating art about death helps him process his mortality.
For the audience (both within the play and watching it): The performance demonstrates how theatrical expression can be a powerful tool for processing grief and trauma. It allows both performers and witnesses to confront death in a safe, symbolic space.
Coral's awakening
Through the performance, Coral emerges from her catatonic state. The creative expression allows her to process her grief and reconnect with the world. She reconciles with Roy, showing that their marriage can survive the tragedy they have experienced. Her journey demonstrates that healing is possible, though it requires confronting pain rather than suppressing it.
Gwen's apology
Gwen apologises to both Meg and Jim, acknowledging how her behaviour has hurt them. By embracing imperfection, she shows significant personal growth and a willingness to value relationships over social status and material concerns.
Harry and Vic's silent exit
After Tom's performance, Harry and Vic leave silently. Their pretence of happiness is finally shattered, and they can no longer maintain the facade. This moment is deeply poignant, showing parents facing the unbearable reality of losing their child.
The Power of Silence:
Harry and Vic's silent exit is one of the most emotionally powerful moments in the play. Throughout the entire performance, they have tried to maintain a cheerful facade for Tom's sake. But after witnessing his performance about death and transformation, they can no longer pretend. Their silence speaks louder than any words could - it represents the complete collapse of their protective pretense and their acceptance that they cannot shield Tom (or themselves) from the approaching reality anymore.
Final image
The play ends with the characters scattering, renewed by their experiences yet forever shadowed by the knowledge of Tom's inevitable death. This bittersweet ending acknowledges both the healing that has occurred and the permanent mark that loss leaves on people's lives.
Key structural progression
Understanding how Gow structures the play helps us appreciate its artistic craftsmanship and thematic depth.
Five-act structure
Gow deliberately uses a five-act structure that mirrors the journey pattern found in Shakespeare's King Lear. This structure follows a specific progression:
- School (Act 1): The ordinary world where characters are introduced with their masks and pretences intact
- Separate estrangement (Act 2): Characters experience isolation and their problems intensify
- Storm catalyst (Act 3): A dramatic event forces change and brings characters together
- Beach reconciliation (Act 4): Characters experience personal revelations and begin to transform
- Transformative ritual (Act 5): Through performance and ceremony, characters achieve resolution
Shakespeare's Influence:
This structure is significant because it elevates what could be a simple domestic drama into something more universal and mythic. By referencing King Lear, Gow connects his story about 1960s Australian families to timeless themes about aging, mortality, and the relationships between parents and children. Just as Lear journeys from palace to heath to eventual reconciliation (or at least understanding), the families in Away journey from their normal lives through the chaos of the storm to transformation on the beach.
Minimalist staging
The play uses minimal set design, primarily featuring a cyclorama sky (a curved backdrop representing the sky). This simplicity serves several purposes:
- It allows for quick scene changes between different locations
- It focuses attention on the characters and their relationships rather than spectacle
- It creates a timeless, universal quality that emphasises the play's themes
- The changing sky can represent different moods and the passage of time
Shakespeare quotations
Throughout the play, characters quote from Shakespeare, particularly from A Midsummer Night's Dream and King Lear. These intertextual references create layers of meaning and connect the characters' experiences to broader literary traditions about transformation, illusion versus reality, and human nature.
The opening scene's use of A Midsummer Night's Dream is particularly clever. That play is about transformation, confusion between illusion and reality, and the power of performance - all themes that resonate throughout Away. When characters later quote from King Lear, especially during the storm sequence, Gow draws explicit parallels between Lear's journey through suffering to wisdom and the journeys his characters undertake.
Historical context within the structure
The play captures 1960s Australia grappling with multiple social changes:
- Vietnam War grief: Many families were dealing with the loss of sons in an unpopular war
- Class divides: Australian society was navigating changing class structures and the rise of the middle class
- Migrant experiences: Post-war migration was reshaping Australian identity
- Mortality and meaning: The era's social upheavals led people to question traditional values
The holiday setting serves as a pressure cooker where these social issues become personal crises that must be confronted.
Key Points to Remember:
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Away follows three Australian families during the 1967-68 Christmas holidays, each facing a different crisis: terminal illness (Tom's family), Vietnam War grief (Coral and Roy), and class tension (Gwen's family)
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The five-act structure mirrors Shakespeare's King Lear, moving from ordinary life through separation, crisis (the storm), revelation, and finally transformation through performance
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The beach setting symbolises both escape and confrontation, as characters are stripped of their usual social masks and forced to face truth about mortality, authenticity, and what matters in life
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Performance plays a central role, from the opening school play to the final talent show, showing how theatre can help people process grief and express difficult emotions
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The play ends with bittersweet hope: characters achieve reconciliation and growth, but Tom's impending death reminds us that some losses cannot be prevented, only accepted with grace and love
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Understanding the historical context of 1960s Australia - particularly the Vietnam War and changing class structures - is essential for fully appreciating the play's themes and relevance to its original audience