“Big wind, he waiting there”: Vance Palmer’s Cyclones of Apocalypse and Their Power of Revelation

Abstract

Prior to writing his 1947 novel, Cyclone, Queensland author Vance Palmer drafted out many of his ideas for the story in three earlier short stories: ‘Cyclone’(1932), ‘Big Wind,’ and ‘Tempest,’ both published in 1936. In these stories and the later novel, Palmer develops the cyclone as trope of apocalypse, an unveiling and realization of the new inherent within the destruction of the old. As a result of experiencing both the terror and the mystery of the apocalyptic cyclonic event, Palmer’s characters realize they have transcended fears and inadequacies within themselves, enabling them to re-create new lives and new worlds.

Keywords

• cyclone
• queensland
• tropical australia
• writing
• novel
• trope
• apocalypse
• terror
• mystery
• transcend