Death as a Theme of Initiation: An essay on the autobiographies 'The Twelth of Never' by Louis Nowra and 'To The Is-Land' by Janet Frame

Abstract or Introduction

In almost any story of childhood and adolescence the topic of death plays a major
role. Especially in autobiographies that begin with early childhood, death is usually
addressed at some point within the story and can often be seen as central to the
child’s initiation process. It is in a child’s first confrontations with death that it
learns about loss and sorrow and begins to understand the finiteness of life.
However, experiences with death tend to be very different for each individual child
and each child has different ways of addressing death, and coming to terms with it.
This essay will examine death as an experience of initiation in the autobiographies
To the Is-Land by Janet Frame and The Twelfth of Never by Louis Nowra. Looking
closely at both of the authors’ early confrontations with death the essay will then
seek to examine common themes of death (e.g. the power of death, the mystery of
death) and will then look at the different ways that death becomes significant to
both characters individually.
In To the Is-Land it is the loss of Frame’s Grandmother that first confronts young
Janet with the reality of death. However, it seems questionable whether Janet at this
point already grasps the finality of death. Her grandmother’s death seems to
provoke curiosity rather than grief. This is illustrated by the fact that Janet’s concern
is more directed towards the decision of whether to look at her dead grandmother
lying in her coffin, or not, than it is towards actually feeling sorrow at the loss of a
loved person. Her refusal to “look on the face of the dead”1 at the same time
confronts her with the connection of death and power, even if this connection is
drawn in a childlike and slightly bizarre way.
“When Myrtle came out of the room, I could see in her face the power of having looked at
the dead.”2

1 Janet Frame, To the Is-Land, p. 23
2 IBID