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27. Poetry
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Golden Age, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Survival
Parenthood and Growing Up
Vocation
Isolation vs. Solitude
Strength, Physicality, and Femininity
Summary
Analysis
On a hunch, Meyer drives out to the beach after making a delivery nearby. He feels like he’s driving into a story that’s already been written and wants to know what will happen. True to his intuition, he sees Sister Penny’s car parked across the road from the ocean. She’s standing on the curb in a bathing suit, toweling off.
It’s important that Meyer meets Sister Penny by the sea. The ocean was the site of Meyer’s experience of profound isolation when he first arrived in Australia; but when Sister Penny described it to him later, he redefined it as a place of peaceful reflection.
Active
Themes
Meyer and Sister Penny smile at each other without saying anything. To Meyer, she looks like a “big, strong sports-playing girl” even though he notices the slight signs of aging in her wide feet and the veins in her legs. He can easily imagine sitting with her in a café on Lake Balaton, surrounded by his brothers and their girlfriends, everyone peaceful and sensual.
Sister Penny informs Meyer that she’s moving to Darwin to accept a new position. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Ann is engaged to be married. Even though Sister Penny knows her daughter has always wanted to be part of a “big, respectable family,” she’s apprehensive because she suspects Elizabeth Ann is pregnant.
Active
Themes
Meyer says that he’s worried about Frank, who is too quiet and seems to have lost some of his confidence. Sister Penny attributes this to his longing for Elsa, saying they shouldn’t be kept apart.
Active
Themes
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Meyer knows that they will soon part and probably never see each other again. He wants to tell Sister Penny how much she’s meant to him. He says that she has taught him “how to live here.”
Active
Themes
Meyer and Sister Penny get into their respective cars and drive away. Sister Penny feels light and relieved in a way she hasn’t since the confrontation with the hospital governors. She feels that Meyer, with his instinctive understanding of her, is “a little magical.”
Active
Themes
