In a discussion of late 19th century Australian writers, Gerry Turcotte writes: “Their exploration of the anxieties of the convict system, the terrors of the isolated stations at the mercy of the prisoners, the vagabonds and nature, the fear of starving or getting lost in the bush, are indeed decidedly Gothic” (3). Here Turcotte highlights a tendency among late 19th-century Australian writers to use Gothic literary conventions to describe an antagonistic relationship between the Australian landscape and its early European inhabitants. This trend can be understood more fully through careful consideration of the differences between two representative works: Marcus Clarke's For the Term of His Natural Life and Joseph Furphy's Such is Life. For the Term of His Natural Life uses personification to portray the Australian landscape as a hostile presence, complicit in the oppression of imprisoned convicts. In contrast, Such is Life presents a more benevolent view of the landscape, with the narrator finding in the harshness of the Australian bush a source of enlightenment. Although the two novels were written during a similar period in Australian literature, they present two different visions of the relationship between the Australian landscape and its early European settlers. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In Clarke's novel, Van Diemen's Land is described as a "natural penitentiary" with inmates and guards victimized by its unforgiving landscape, but this antagonism begins before they even reach its shores. For the guards and prisoners aboard the Malabar, the sea is terribly human: when the sea hisses, it speaks, and the word breaks the spell of terror; when he is inert, he pants without making a noise, he is mute and seems to meditate on malice. (Clarke 58)The current island is no longer welcoming. At the beginning of Book 2, the narrator provides a long and detailed description of the landscape in a chapter titled "The Topography of Van Diemen's Land." Included is a description of Macquarie Harbour, where the convicts will soon be imprisoned: The air is cold and damp, the ground is prolific only in thorny undergrowth and noxious weeds, while the fetid exhalations of the marshes and swamps cling to the damp soil and spongy. Everything around breathes desolation; a perpetual frown is imprinted on the face of nature. (Clarke 96) These two passages show Clarke's characterization of the landscape as an antagonist. Clarke gives the sea the ability to "hisse" and "speak" and "brood on evil", and gives nature a face marked by "a perpetual frown", personifying the landscape as an evil and malignant presence, a characterization that is decidedly gothic in its evocation of an atmosphere of horror and terror. This landscape is particularly threatening to inmates trying to escape. This effect is shown in several episodes throughout the novel, the first of which is the return of the captive Gabbett from “the dark depths of that forest that had vomited him out again” (Clarke 110) after he and several others had attempted to escape . The horrors that befall Gabbett and the others in the forest are hinted at several times throughout the novel before finally being revealed as cannibalism near the end of the novel in chapter 56, "The Valley of the Shadow of Death." This episode shows the landscape reducing humanity to one of the lowest circumstances possible: people eating each other to survive. Dawes is reminded of the impossibility of escape during his attempt when he discovers the mutilated corpse left by Gabbett: Escape was hopeless Now. Not/60.