By linking colonialism’s cruelty toward Aboriginal Australian people and natural wonders to the forces of repression which colonial society enacts upon young, white females (like those who go missing at the rock), Lindsay argues that there is a powerful connection among the forces of nature, colonialism, and repression. As the novel progresses, Lindsay shows how the forces of British colonialism have sought to repress, contain, and even obliterate nature. When three schoolgirls and their governess go missing during an excursion to the rock, the local community-which has long viewed the rock as a serene place to gather, eat, read, and laze-must reckon with the rock itself, (and the larger Australian countryside around it) as an imposing, dangerous, and perhaps even vengeful presence. It is enormous, remote, and-in spite of the picnic grounds and privies which have sprung up at its base to make tourists more comfortable-a place of wild, untamed terrain. Hanging Rock is a volcanic formation in Victoria, Australia which was, for tens of thousands of years, a sacred meeting-place for several Aboriginal tribes. The titular setting of Picnic at Hanging Rock is also its central symbol, and the locus of one of its most important themes.
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