Module A: Language, identity and culture
The drovers wife
historical context
o short stories were written by Henry Lawson during the 1990s
o Lawson wrote for the bulletin- ‘Bushman’s bible’ because it appealed to the beliefs of
men in the 19th century: mateship, egalitarianism, unionism and occasionally socialism
and republicanism
o Lawson wrote in a style named ‘sketch’
o a sketch is a short story with very little plot
o the style is more serious and attempts to show the tragedy in people’s lives for its own
sake
Egalitarianism: the doctrine that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and
opportunities.
Unionism: the policies and practices of trade unions, particularly those concerned with
protecting and furthering the rights of workers
Socialism: a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the
means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the
community as a whole.
Republicanism: support for a republican system of government
Language
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Identity
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Culture
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Lawsons language reveals stereotypes and social class, political
representations of self and generalisation of a white Australian cultural
perspective and identity
‘The Drovers Wife’: Emphasises the hardships of bush myth, legends of
stoicism and endurance
‘The Loaded Dog’: presents slang, colloquialisms and humour, the
idea of bushmen and swagmen
‘The Union Buries it’s Dead’: We read of bushmen and drovers, shearers
and publicans. Landscape- billabongs’ and climatic descriptions
‘heat rushed in fierce dazzling rays’ are uniquely Australian and those
who don’t have knowledge will assume that is the landscape we all
live in
‘Shooting the Moon’: We read of ‘mulga…swags’ and ‘bushies’
‘Our Pipes’: We read ‘tucker- bags’ and ‘Johnny-Cakes’. Lawson tells
us that the language is unique to, and understand, only by ‘swagmen’
revealing that they are unique to Australian identity
Identity is the notion of who we are including the influences of our birth
parents, naming, gender, race, ethnicity, spirituality and education
Identity will change as we become more aware of our own potential
to accept or reject aspects of our inherited traits as well as adopt traits
we recognise and admire in others
Over the past 230 years, we have become aware of white Australia
belonging to an identity that existed long before any sense of
multiculturalism
The text mythologises the bushman, the landscape and the
experiences
There is a satirical perspective in some texts suggesting Lawson is
aware of the uniqueness of his writing and as such we appreciate the
identity in the context of the time he was writing and the audience he
wrote for
Defined as those aspects of our understanding of human connection
that reveal the heritage, customs, traditions and knowledge of any
particular group
Language is an inherent aspect of culture in that it communicate the
ways and values of the past
Food, social customs, religion, art, music, family connections all
contribute to the notion of what culture is and what defined in human
experience
The bushmen and women are laconic, hard drinking, have adapted
to the environment and its hardships
Culture defines us; the monoculture of the texts, however has become
a mythical representation of Australian identity
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1) The Drovers Wife
context:
o Australian bus, late 19th century
The story opens with the drover’s wife and her children alone in their house in the bush. One
of the children discovers a snake and calls for the mother. The bush-woman reaches for her
stick and rushes to her children, but meanwhile the snake hides in a hole between the wall
and floor. As the snake disappears the woman puts the children to sleep and waits up with
her dog Alligator for the reptile to come out. As she waits, she starts to recall several
dangerous situations she had to face throughout the years when her husband was away
with the sheep. She fought bushfire, flood, dangerous men, and even illness that spread
among the cattle. She is mostly content, but still feels isolated, dreaming of the fashion
pictures in her ladies' magazine
Tone and mood
o Determined
o threatening
o Lonely
o Suspenseful
o Melancholic
Identity and culture
The house
Identity
o Representation of rough
existence, a symbolic
example
o The materials of the house
are tough and this echoes
the harsh environment and
existence
“Bush downer”
Character analysis
The drovers wife
Culture
o Part of the folklore and
pioneering spirit
o Expectations of the woman
having to bear the brunt of
raising the children
o Cultural representations of
bush woman as pragmatic,
hardworking and loyal
language
o slang- archetypal (stereotype) identity of a freeloader who
arrives at sunset unwilling to work but relying on the hospitality of
the bush to force the woman to provide him with food
o Reinforces the fear of a woman alone
o
o
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Inhabits the Australian bush together with her four “ragged,
dried-up looking children,”
Encounter various hardships during her husband’s absence.
She is lonely and poor, but remains strong, dreaming of fashion
and another life.
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Tommy
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o
Jacky
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o
Alligator (dog)
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The drover
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As she waits up for the snake, she recalls various dangerous
situations she had to face in her life.
It is apparent she is accustomed to the hardships that life brings
her, and that she is capable of taking care of herself and the
children.
The snake that represents another threat is also eventually
defeated. She has no other option than to continue being
strong and brave; however, her tears at the end of the story
suggest that even she has her limits and that these limits may be
reached someday.
She remains unnamed
Tommy is the drovers’ wife’s eldest son.
He wants to protect his mother, so he wants to be the one who
kills the snake.
Later, when Tommy sees his mother cry, he promises he will
never become a drover.
Jacky is Tommy’s younger brother.
When the mother puts the children to sleep so she can watch
out for the snake, he complains of being “skeezed” and that his
brother is skinning him alive with his club. When more room is
made for him he goes to sleep
Alligator is the big, black, yellow-eyed mongrel dog.
representation of security and loyalty, a reference to the droving
culture and man’s relationship with animals in the outback.
there are bravery and stoicism in the dog as well as the
individuals.
the dog represents the cultural notion of man and beast working
together to combat the harshness of the bush experience.
The dog is precious to the family, and they cannot afford to lose
him.
He hates all other dogs except for kangaroo dogs, and he has a
marked dislike of friends or relations of the family, though he
sometimes is friendlier to strangers.
He has also been used by the drover's wife to scare off insistent
swagmen in the past.
He is often away droving, although he had wanted to give this
profession up to be a farmer.
He takes care of his family as best he can and is a decent
husband, though his wife knows he sometimes sleeps with other
women.
His fate is unknown at the end of the story
Themes
Gender
o The drover's wife is a complex figure, neither fully conforming to nor fully deviating
from late 19th century Western gender roles and expectations.
o On the one hand, she is the ultimate mother, putting her children's needs before her
own and doing all she can to ensure their survival.
o She likes fashion and dressing up for the purpose of being seen, even when there is
no one to see her.
o On the other hand, she is strong and independent, fighting all the fights that come
her way without wavering.
o She is no damsel in distress, no nagging wife; she seems to be much stronger than her
"careless" husband, and someone who can take on the various threats encountered
in the bush.
Man vs nature
o Nature is a true beast in this tale.
o The bush throws fires, floods, poisonous animals, storms, and droughts at the people of
the bush; life sometimes seems to be merely survival.
o Nature is depicted as powerful and capricious, and utterly indifferent to the men and
women who seek to inhabit her landscapes.
o Man must match strength and wits with Nature to continue to live, which is exactly
what the drover's wife does.
o She fights one thing after the other because it is simply what must be done.
Sometimes she wins, sometimes she loses.
Resignation and acceptance
o One of the most conspicuous traits of the drover's wife is her resignation to and
acceptance of the life she has.
o She may occasionally dream of fashion photographs and of the things she once had,
but she never complains or wishes things were different.
o She knows that this is her life and that if she does not work with what she is given, she
will actually perish.
o There is no room for wavering or weakness in the bush, and whether or not this trait of
resignation was inherent in the drover's wife or developed in response to her rural
surroundings, it is clear that she has embraced it and that it is what gives her and her
family life.
Quote and analysis
“ She put on an
symbolism
old pair of her
husband’s
trousers and
tried to beat out
the dire with a
green tree
branch
"...and she runs
simile
out, points a
stick at the birds
as though it
were a gun."
o
o
o
o
o
"As a girl she built
the usual castles
in the air."
metaphor
The land-aswoman
Metaphor
o
o
o
o
Symbolic: puts on husbands pants to fight fire
because she is clearly “wearing the pants”
Shows how stoic, smart and steadfast she is
shows the drover's wife's ingenuity, but the
language also establishes her as a force to be
reckoned with.
The image of the gun formed in the reader's
mind connotes her strength and
tenaciousness.
While her husband is away she has to defend
herself, her family, and her property at all costs
and even though she does not seem to
actually have a gun, this simile allows us to
associate her with defence and courage.
Implies that the drover's wife had fantastical,
unrealistic dreams that have since vanished.
Building a castle in the air is obviously
impossible, and this metaphor effectively
indicates that her wishes for another life are
doomed.
Kay Shaffer, one of the most prominent
scholars of Australian literature sees the land as
a metaphor for woman.
She writes "[the land] functions as a metaphor
for woman—as in father sky to mother earth,
o
o
o
o
colonial master to the plains of promise, native
son to the barren bush."
The bush is desirable, wild, and hard to tame.
The drover's wife similarly has a "hard" facade,
but is vulnerable underneath.
She is not easy on her children, but ultimately
she nurtures and sustains them, as the bush
does for its native animals and people.
The bush also appears sparse and
monotonous, yet it teems with life and
vibrancy (snakes, bullocks, storms, kangaroos,
aborigines); the drover's wife appears stoic
and simple, but beneath her worn exterior her
mind teems with memories, wishes, and woes.
There is richness beyond the surface of both
the bush and the woman if one is willing to
probe more deeply
The table
"She quickly
picks up some
pillows and
blankets,
expecting to see
or lay her hand
on the snake
any minute. She
makes a bed on
the kitchen table
for the children,
and sits down
beside it to
watch all nigh
imagery
Symbolism
“Big black,
yellow-eyed
dog-of-allbreeds”
Hyphenated
adjectives
Alliteration
o
Get an image of a tough, unflinching dog, a
dog that is ready for battle
“No ranges…no
undergrowth.
nothing to
relieve the eyes”
Repetition of
‘no’ and
‘nothing’
o
Focus on absences, repetition of ‘no’ and
‘nothing’ provides a negative connotation.
This creates a depressing image of isolation
and barren surroundings
“the fire
threatened to
burn her out”
“He shakes the
snake…common
with mankind”
Personification
o
o
o
o
Biblical illusion
o
Mother puts her children on top of the rough
table because that is the only place they will
be safe from the snake.
It reinforces the straitened circumstances of
living in the bush.
A table is also a place for sustenance and
survival when it comes to food, and here the
children are surviving in a completely different
way.
Personification paints an image of Australian
weather
Shaking the sin and burning the sin away
Symbols
The snake
o A symbol of evil and the dark forces that menace the family.
o The snake's symbolism derives from the book of Genesis, and beyond that its many
biblical associations with the devil.
Anecdote
o The anecdotes and killing of the snakes suggest empowerment and yet there is
bitterness for the necessity of being subjected to this experience by a ‘careless
husband’.
o She is represented through the actions and verbs as heroic and stoic, attributes of the
pioneering woman whose husband is away.
o The representation is an iconic one, an identity that has extended into the notion that
rural woman is somehow hardier than their city counterparts, this has become a
cultural myth.
Allegory
The aboriginal man
o The aboriginal man is not simply one man who is aggrieved by the presence of white
settlers and rues his loss of power. Rather, he is an allegorical figure because he
represents the larger destruction of the aboriginal people and culture.
o He was once a "King" and is the "last of his tribe;" similarly, all aborigines face the loss
of their land, power, and culture. They are all forced to adapt to the Europeans in
their presence and are subject to insult and stereotype, if not outright violence and
political and economic marginalization.
o Lawson includes this man to suggest the deleterious effects of the European
presence in Australia, and to encourage his readers to be more conscious of the way
the aborigines were, and are, treated.