Picnic at Hanging Rock

by

Joan Lindsay

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A popular and wealthy senior girl at Appleyard College. Irma disappears mysteriously along with Marion Quade, Miranda, and Miss McCraw up on Hanging Rock—but unlike the others, she is found alive within a few days of having gone missing. Irma is an heiress whose father has ties to the mining industry, while her mother is rumored to be a member of the well-known, wealthy Rothschild clan, who had the world’s largest private fortunate in the 19th century. Irma is richer than any of her classmates—a fact that brings her some pride—but is shown to be generous to a fault, even giving one of her expensive emerald bracelets to her favorite teacher, Mademoiselle. When Mike Fitzhubert, perturbed by the girls’ disappearance and hoping to rescue Miranda (whose beauty he noticed on the day of the picnic) ascends Hanging Rock alone in search of the Appleyard girls, he finds Irma. However, Mike himself overpowered by the mysterious forces up on the rock before he is able to rescue her. Luckily, Albert Crundall (Mike’s coachman) follows Mike up the rock and saves both of them from certain death. As Irma convalesces at Lake View, the Fitzhuberts’ estate, her caretakers and investigators hope that she’ll be able to provide some insight as to what happened up on the rock, but Irma has no memories beyond the picnic. Shyer and more demure in the wake of her accident, Irma harbors feelings for Mike—but does not act upon them when she senses he doesn’t reciprocate her longing. After a disastrous final visit to Appleyard College to fetch her things—a visit in which her classmates turn on her, screaming in her face and threatening her as if possessed by pure rage—Irma joins her parents back home in Europe. The novel reveals that she eventually becomes a countess, though she never recovers her memories of her dreadful days on Hanging Rock.

Irma Leopold Quotes in Picnic at Hanging Rock

The Picnic at Hanging Rock quotes below are all either spoken by Irma Leopold or refer to Irma Leopold. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Nature, Repression, and Colonialism Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2 Quotes

If Albert was right and they were only schoolgirls about the same age as his sisters in England, how was it they were allowed to set out alone, at the end of a summer afternoon? He reminded himself that he was in Australia now: Australia, where anything might happen. In England everything had been done before: quite often by one’s own ancestors, over and over again. He sat down on a fallen log, heard Albert calling him through the trees, and knew that this was the country where he, Michael Fitzhubert, was going to live.

Related Characters: Michael (Mike) Fitzhubert, Irma Leopold, Miranda, Marion Quade, Edith Horton
Related Symbols: Hanging Rock
Page Number: 23-24
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

“I feel perfectly awful! When are we going home?” Miranda was looking at her so strangely, almost as if she wasn’t seeing her. When Edith repeated the question more loudly, she simply turned her back and began walking away up the rise, the other two following a little way behind. Well, hardly walking —sliding over the stones on their bare feet as if they were on a drawing-room carpet… […] “Come back, all of you! Don’t go up there – come back!” She felt herself choking and tore at her frilled lace collar. […] To her horror all three girls were fast moving out of sight behind the monolith.

Related Characters: Edith Horton (speaker), Irma Leopold, Miranda, Marion Quade
Related Symbols: Hanging Rock
Page Number: 32
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

For three consecutive mornings the Australian public had been devouring, along with its bacon and eggs, the luscious details of the College Mystery as it was now known to the Press. Although no further information had been unearthed and nothing resembling a clue, […] the public must be fed. To this end, some additional spice had been added to Wednesday’s columns’ photographs of the Hon. Michael’s ances­tral home, Haddingham Hall […] and of course Irma Leopold’s beauty and reputed millions on coming of age.

Related Characters: Michael (Mike) Fitzhubert, Irma Leopold
Related Symbols: Hanging Rock
Page Number: 52
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

Greatly to Mrs. Cutler’s surprise the lamb had been brought in just as she had been lying on the Rock, without a corset. A modest woman, for whom the word corset was never uttered by a lady in the presence of a gent, she had made no comment to the doctor […] Thus the valuable clue of the missing corset was never followed up nor communicated to the police. Nor to the inmates of Appleyard College where Irma Leopold, well known for her fastidious taste […] had been seen by several of her classmates, on the morning of [the picnic] wearing a pair of long, lightly boned, French satin stays.

Related Characters: Irma Leopold, Mrs. Cutler
Page Number: 95-96
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

The girl so far had remembered nothing of her experiences on the Rock; nor, in Doctor McKenzie’s opinion or that of the two eminent special­ists from Sydney and Melbourne, would she ever remember. A portion of the delicate mechanism of the brain appeared to be irrevocably damaged. “Like a clock, you know,” the doctor explained. “A clock that stops under a certain set of unusual conditions and refuses ever to go again beyond a particular point.”

Related Characters: Doctor McKenzie (speaker), Irma Leopold
Related Symbols: Hanging Rock
Page Number: 113-114
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

“If I may say so, now that you are no longer under my care, your teachers were continually complaining to me of your lack of application. Even a girl with your expectations should be able to spell.” The words were hardly out of her mouth before she realized that she had made a strategic blunder. It was above all things necessary not to further antagonize the wealthy Leopolds. Money is power. Money is strength and safety. Even silence has to be paid for.

Related Characters: Mrs. Appleyard (speaker), Irma Leopold
Page Number: 137-138
Explanation and Analysis:

They see the walls of the gymnasium fading into an exquisite transparency, the ceiling opening up like a flower into the brilliant sky above the Hanging Rock. The shadow of the Rock is flowing, luminous as water, across the shimmering plain and they are at the picnic, sitting on the warm dry grass under the gum trees. […] The shadow of the Rock has grown darker and longer. They sit rooted to the ground and cannot move. The dreadful shape is a living monster lumbering towards them across the plain, scattering rocks and boulders. So near now, they can see the cracks and hollows where the lost girls lie rotting in a filthy cave.

Related Characters: Irma Leopold, Mademoiselle Dianne de Poitiers
Related Symbols: Hanging Rock
Page Number: 141
Explanation and Analysis:
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Irma Leopold Quotes in Picnic at Hanging Rock

The Picnic at Hanging Rock quotes below are all either spoken by Irma Leopold or refer to Irma Leopold. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Nature, Repression, and Colonialism Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2 Quotes

If Albert was right and they were only schoolgirls about the same age as his sisters in England, how was it they were allowed to set out alone, at the end of a summer afternoon? He reminded himself that he was in Australia now: Australia, where anything might happen. In England everything had been done before: quite often by one’s own ancestors, over and over again. He sat down on a fallen log, heard Albert calling him through the trees, and knew that this was the country where he, Michael Fitzhubert, was going to live.

Related Characters: Michael (Mike) Fitzhubert, Irma Leopold, Miranda, Marion Quade, Edith Horton
Related Symbols: Hanging Rock
Page Number: 23-24
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

“I feel perfectly awful! When are we going home?” Miranda was looking at her so strangely, almost as if she wasn’t seeing her. When Edith repeated the question more loudly, she simply turned her back and began walking away up the rise, the other two following a little way behind. Well, hardly walking —sliding over the stones on their bare feet as if they were on a drawing-room carpet… […] “Come back, all of you! Don’t go up there – come back!” She felt herself choking and tore at her frilled lace collar. […] To her horror all three girls were fast moving out of sight behind the monolith.

Related Characters: Edith Horton (speaker), Irma Leopold, Miranda, Marion Quade
Related Symbols: Hanging Rock
Page Number: 32
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

For three consecutive mornings the Australian public had been devouring, along with its bacon and eggs, the luscious details of the College Mystery as it was now known to the Press. Although no further information had been unearthed and nothing resembling a clue, […] the public must be fed. To this end, some additional spice had been added to Wednesday’s columns’ photographs of the Hon. Michael’s ances­tral home, Haddingham Hall […] and of course Irma Leopold’s beauty and reputed millions on coming of age.

Related Characters: Michael (Mike) Fitzhubert, Irma Leopold
Related Symbols: Hanging Rock
Page Number: 52
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

Greatly to Mrs. Cutler’s surprise the lamb had been brought in just as she had been lying on the Rock, without a corset. A modest woman, for whom the word corset was never uttered by a lady in the presence of a gent, she had made no comment to the doctor […] Thus the valuable clue of the missing corset was never followed up nor communicated to the police. Nor to the inmates of Appleyard College where Irma Leopold, well known for her fastidious taste […] had been seen by several of her classmates, on the morning of [the picnic] wearing a pair of long, lightly boned, French satin stays.

Related Characters: Irma Leopold, Mrs. Cutler
Page Number: 95-96
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

The girl so far had remembered nothing of her experiences on the Rock; nor, in Doctor McKenzie’s opinion or that of the two eminent special­ists from Sydney and Melbourne, would she ever remember. A portion of the delicate mechanism of the brain appeared to be irrevocably damaged. “Like a clock, you know,” the doctor explained. “A clock that stops under a certain set of unusual conditions and refuses ever to go again beyond a particular point.”

Related Characters: Doctor McKenzie (speaker), Irma Leopold
Related Symbols: Hanging Rock
Page Number: 113-114
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

“If I may say so, now that you are no longer under my care, your teachers were continually complaining to me of your lack of application. Even a girl with your expectations should be able to spell.” The words were hardly out of her mouth before she realized that she had made a strategic blunder. It was above all things necessary not to further antagonize the wealthy Leopolds. Money is power. Money is strength and safety. Even silence has to be paid for.

Related Characters: Mrs. Appleyard (speaker), Irma Leopold
Page Number: 137-138
Explanation and Analysis:

They see the walls of the gymnasium fading into an exquisite transparency, the ceiling opening up like a flower into the brilliant sky above the Hanging Rock. The shadow of the Rock is flowing, luminous as water, across the shimmering plain and they are at the picnic, sitting on the warm dry grass under the gum trees. […] The shadow of the Rock has grown darker and longer. They sit rooted to the ground and cannot move. The dreadful shape is a living monster lumbering towards them across the plain, scattering rocks and boulders. So near now, they can see the cracks and hollows where the lost girls lie rotting in a filthy cave.

Related Characters: Irma Leopold, Mademoiselle Dianne de Poitiers
Related Symbols: Hanging Rock
Page Number: 141
Explanation and Analysis: