The central argument of the thesis the representation and reception of otherness is followed
throughout White's novels with the support of a complex critical instrumentarium made up of
postcolonial theory reader response theory cultural-critical frameworks alterity theory and
narratology. Otherness in its manifold representations is a main component of Patrick White's
fiction. It functions on several levels and this requires a deeper entanglement on the part of
the reader. The different levels previously referred to are embodied in the various Others who
people White's novels: ethnic Others as members of the Australian multicultural society and the
Aborigines as colonial Others as well as gender Others who also play an important role in
White's fictional world. Reading Patrick White is an exercise in tolerance endurance and
acceptance of alternatives. But the efforts of the reader do not remain unrewarded. In his
endeavour to change what it meant to imagine Australia the writer broke down the barriers of
what it meant to imagine otherness.
