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(1)HENRY LAWSON'S PORTRAYAL OF AUSTRALIANISM. by. Mayumi Miyamoto 宮本まゆみ. A Dissertation Presented to The Graduate School of Language, Communication, and Culture Kwansei Gakuin University. In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy. March 2012.

(2) Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation. Henry Lawson's Portrayal of Australianism. by Mayumi Miyamoto. Members of Evaluation Committee. Major Advisor:. Associate Advisor:. Associate Advisor:. Associate Advisor:. 1.

(3) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. First, I would like to express my deep gratitude to the late Professor Emeritus Gen Ohinata for accepting me as his student and providing me with valuable advice even though my theme, Australian literature, was not very popular in Japan.. I also thank Professor Kazuhiko Tamura for taking. over the role of "major advisor", and Professors Naoto Sugiyama and Kazuhiko Sekitani, for their appropriate advice.. I am very grateful to. Associate Professor Jun Nagatomo for his kind help. I give my many thanks to Assistant Professor Shirley Leane of Tottori University for her help in checking my English and giving useful advice.. I. would like to convey special thanks to Doctor Peter Kirkpatrick of the University of Sydney for sharing his time with me in his office and the important advice he gave at that time. Many thanks to my family, including my mother, uncle, and sister-in -law for their kind cooperation. Thanks also to my friends who often encouraged me to continue my study, especially when I felt weak and tired. Finally, I would like to say "THANK YOU!" to my own family, my husband and two sons, for their patience and support during the almost ten years of my study about Henry Lawson.. 11.

(4) ABSTRACT. Henry Lawson's Portrayal of Australianism. by Mayumi Miyamoto. Henry Lawson (1867-1922) is a well-known Australian writer.. In his. time, his poems and short stories describing the Australian bush and the people who lived there, were very popular. When he started his writing career in 1887, Australia was celebrating the centenary of its first European immigration, and the growing numbers of Australia-born citizens had already developed their own characteristics and mannerisms.. Lawson. illustrated "Australianism" or what it is that characterises people in Australia, through not a few bush characters who appear in his writings. For Lawson, the Australian bush, an embodiment of the Australian climate and environment, was the primary source of "Australianism".. It. was where he was born and lived in his younger days, and later, where he matured as a writer as well as a person. In his writings, Lawson defines the bush as the cause of three main woes: solitude, madness, and death.. The characters in his poems and. stories, on the whole, suffer from these woes as a result of the harsh environment, and they are usually unsuccessful in their lives.. In Lawson's. writings, the bush is an absolute entity that people never overcome, nor 111.

(5) escape from, no matter where they live. Lawson highlights "mateship", a unique form of friendship among men living in the bush, as a way of getting relief from their hardship.. He also. shows how to enjoy life, even in hard circumstances, in his humorous stories, and suggests a human relationship for people living in the bush, separate from "mateship", in his family stories. No Lawson character becomes a winner in the bush.. These are all important factors which characterise the. people living in Australia to be "Australian". The beginnings of the nation with convict transportation and Irish immigrants, as well as the Australian bush were also major factors which gave Australians their own characteristics.. However, Lawson did not. positively write about either the convicts or the Irish immigrants.. His lack. of characters representing these two important groups conveys far more about typical Australians of his time, than if he had actually written about them. Lawson insists in his poem, "The Men Who Made Australia", that the bush people are those who really made their country and should be praised for their exertions.. People, in turn, would have become more aware of. their characteristics as Australians by reading Lawson's poems and short stories. Henry Lawson appeared during a time of transition when Australia changed from a British settlement to a federated nation, and he contributed to the awareness of the people as new citizens independent of their native country.. Today, Australia has greatly changed from Lawson's times and. has become a multi ·cultural country, however, Lawson and his literature will live on and be remembered whenever the Australians have a need to know where they come from and what they should aim for in the future.. IV.

(6) Contents. Members of Evaluation Committee ...................................................... i Acknowledgement ........................................................................... ii Abstract ........................................................................................ iii Introduction ..................................................................................... 1 Chapter I ....... oo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . oo • . . . ••• . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • •. ... 10. Change of the Characters in Lawson's Writings Chapter II .................................................................................... 25 The Australian Bush and Lawson's Bush Characters Chapter III ................................................................................. 43 Deaths in "The Hero of Redclay" Chapter IV. . . . .. . .. ... . .. . .. .. . ... ... ... ... . .. ... ... . .. ... . .. ... . . . ... ... . .. ... . .. ... . .. ... 56 Mateship Described in Lawson's Writings Chapter V ............................ oo . . . . . . . . . . . oo • oo. .OO. to • •. oo oo ••. to. oo • • oo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 70. Humour in Lawson's Bush Stories Chapter VI ................................................................................. 91 Joe Wilson, a Family Bushman Chapter VII ................................................................................. 110 Convicts and the Irish for Lawson's Literature Conclusion .................................................................................. 127 Notes ...................................... t. t ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••. 131. Bibliography ................................................................................ 147. v.

(7) Introduction. Henry Archibald Lawson (1867-1922) started his writing career almost a hundred years after the first landing of the British fleet in Australia.. That was also the time when Australia started to have her own. characteristics and foster the culture, apart from Britain. 1 This thesis will explore the ethos of Australia or the "Australianism", expressed in Lawson's writing. In particular, some characters in his poems and stories, which seem to represent Australian characteristics with their words, deeds, and thoughts, will be examined. This thesis is not about Australian identity, but rather is about character.. Identity is established, or created by the person concerned,. whereas character is often more accurately assessed by an onlooker. Generally speaking, character is acquired unconsciously· and people are not always aware of the habits they have developed.. Character traits are. sometimes grasped more clearly when observed from a distance. Henry Lawson was an important literary figure in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Australia.. He was born in 1867 to an. Australian mother, Louisa, and a Norwegian father, Peter, in the small town of Grenfell in the state of New South Wales.. He wrote his first poem in. 1887, when Australia was still a colony of the British Empire, which began in 1788 when the first British fleet arrived in Sydney.. Lawson wrote many. works, in both verse and prose, including masterpieces and failures, during his thirty-five-year writing career. Lawson is generally thought to have been prosperous only for about the first fifteen years of his writing career.. In particular, his successful. years virtually coincided with the final vital years before Australian 1.

(8) Federation. 2 In the new, twentieth century, he continued to write poems and stories, but unfortunately, he could not produce as many masterpieces as in the early period.. In his later years, he separated from his wife and. children, was hit with several lawsuits, and was in and out of gaol and mental institutions.. In the end, he became a penniless drunkard, and even. with support from his friends, barely survived until his death from cerebral hemorrhage in 1922. During the time Lawson was in his prime as a writer, Australia was in the final period of colonisation.. The demographic structure of the country. at that time was completely different from today.. The total population of. Australia, excluding Aborigines, by the end of 1900 was approximately 3,765,000,. and. by. 1901,. almost. 77.1%. of the. population. was. Australian -born. 3 Some of the ancestors of the Australian· born people had been immigrants, others were convicts, mostly from Britain and Ireland. There were also immigrants from other European and Asian countries, but the numbers were very small at that time. 4 New South Wales, where Lawson was born and lived, had a population of over 1,350,000 in 1901. 5 The percentage of the state's population who were Australian-born was similar to that of the whole country.6 In 1891, in New South Wales, 52.2% of the immigrant population were English born, 13% were Scottish, 26.3% Irish, 1.8% Wales.. Other Europeans included. Germans (3.3%), and Scandinavians (1.6%). 7 The situation was almost the same in the other states. 8 These statistics show that the ethnic structure of the society to which Lawson belonged was strongly Anglo-Celtic.. This. racial structure did not change so much until a few years after World War II, and the percentage of Anglo-Celtic people in the total population of approximately 7.6 million was as high as 99.5 % in 1947. 9 Lawson lived in this society, and from his careful observation and 2.

(9) colourful imagination, he created a variety of interesting characters. Lawson liked to write about people in socially weak positions.. Most of all,. his enthusiasm was focused on describing people who lived and worked in the severe conditions of the Australian bush.. Lawson's poems and stories. were widely read at that time because his sympathetic attitude to hard-working people touched the hearts of the general population both in the bush and in cities. For several decades after Federation in 1901, partly because of its small population, Australia's national security was sometimes threatened, especially by the Japanese during the Second World War. As a result, the government decided to accept non· British immigrants more positively than before. 10. Mter the Vietnam War, they also accepted boat people.. Consequently, Australia has become a leading multi·cultural nation today. Present day Australians seem to regard Lawson, sometimes reluctantly, as a reminder of bygone days when their country was under the sovereignty of the British Empire, before it became federated and particular social values, including the White Australia policy, were introduced. Actually, Lawson became the subject of a talk in the country when the controversial One Nation party led by Pauline Hanson, called for a return to "White Australia" in the 1996 federal election. 11 Today, for many people in Australia's modern multicultural society, Henry Lawson is a largely forgotten writer from the past. However, it is notable that Lawson and his works can be seen, not frequently though, in some recently issued books.. For example, City Bushman, which was. issued in 2004, is a book about Henry Lawson and his reputation. Christopher Lee, the writer of the book, reviews the influence of Lawson's reputation on society from three perspectives: a) during his life, b) after his death, and c) on local society.. Lee also devotes not a few pages to the 3.

(10) political use of Lawson's reputation by Australian society. Another recent book, Serious Frolic, a collection of essays on Australian humour, was issued in 2009, and the book mentions Henry Lawson and his works, including an. essay about Lawson's famous short story, "The Loaded Dog" . It is remarkable that Henry Lawson and his works still remain in the minds of Australian people today even though he was not necessarily what is called a literary master. Lawson wrote several hundred poems and short stories, but he did not write a novel, and this may be one reason why he did not become known worldwide. However, he definitely became a national writer in Australia because he vividly described people and their surroundings during a period of rapid growth in Australia, often collecting ideas for his writing from his personal experiences.. Christopher Lee, who. is also a specialist in Henry Lawson and his literature, states: "The stature of Henry Lawson in the cultural history of Australia is due to the historical utility of his reputation for licensing various forms of social identity."12 Apart from Australia's identity, Lawson's popularity seems to be due to the Australianism which he heartily implanted in his works, especially with his attractive characters. In 1901, Lawson composed a poem, "The Men Who Made Australia". As the subtitle. of the poem, "Written on the occasion of the Royal Visit to Australia, 1901", indicates, the poem describes one of the events concerning Federation when the Duke of Cornwall and York (the future King George V) came to Australia in May, 1901. 13. Lawson did not witness the event. because he was far from home in London at that time.. Therefore, he wrote. about it only using his imagination. Although the poem is not regarded as one of his best, nor has it been taken up by critics so often, it is worth reading to know Lawson's views on people he believed to be the true Australians. 4. In the poem, Lawson fIrst.

(11) criticises snobby people who are proud to be attending the event and demonstrate their cheap flattery of the British Empire by the festive mood with which they welcome the royal visitors.. At the same time, he points. out that the people who should be present at the event, are not invited: There'll be royal times in Sydney for the Cuff and Collar Push, There'll be lots of dreary drivel and clap-trap From the men who own Australia, but who never knew the Bush, And who could not point their runs out on the map.. o the daily Press will grovel as it never did before, There'll be many flags of welcome in the air, And the Civil Service poet, he shall write odes by the score But the men who made the land will not be there. (1-8) He, then, emphasises that there used to be the pains and sacrifices of the people who were indispensable to the development of Australian colonies, and that their hard work enabled their employers to be rich and allowed the Australian economy to grow: Call across the blazing sand wastes of the Never-Never Land! There are some who will not answer yet awhile; Some whose bones rot in the mulga 14 or lie bleaching on the sand Died of thirst to win the land another mile. Thrown from horses, ripped by cattle, lost on deserts; and the weak, Mad through loneliness or drink (no matter which), Drowned in floods or dead of fever by the sluggish slimy creekThese are men who died to make the Wool-Kings rich.. Call across the scrubby ridges where they clear the barren soil, And the gaunt Bushwomen share the work of men 5.

(12) Toil and loneliness for ever - hardship, loneliness and toil Where the brave drought-ruined farmer starts again! Call across the boundless sheep-runs of a country cursed for sheep Call across the awful scrublands west of Bourke! But they have no time to listen - they have scarcely tilne to sleep For the men who conquer deserts have to work. (17-32 ) In the poem, Lawson suggests that they are drovers, farmers, women, and others who have been working hard in the bush, toiling for their country, sometimes at the cost of their own lives. Finally, the poet gives something like a prediction for the country's future: For the sons of all Australia, they were born to conquer fate And, where charity and friendship are sincere, Where a sinner is a brother and a stranger is a mate, There the future of a nation's written clear. (53-56). There are men amongst the Bushmen who were born to save the land! And they'll take their places sternly by-and-by. (63-64). And wherever go the billy 15, water-bag and frying-pan, They are drafting future histories of state! (79-80) Lawson is definite that "the sons of Australia" or "men among the bushmen" will shoulder the future of the country.. He also explains that they are. "where charity and friendship are sincere," which means that those men believe in "mate ship" . "A sinner is a brother and a stranger is a Inate" means that many of them are probably sons of convicts or migrants, or both. 6.

(13) The poem, as a whole, seems to be aimed at raising awareness of independent Australians and to make readers think again about who the people are who made Australia, and who genuine Australians are.. It is. difficult, of course, to define "an Australian" individually because one hundred Australians could have one hundred different characters. However, it is logical to assume that people develop some characteristics in common as a result of living extended periods in the same social environment.. Therefore, it is natural to think that by the time Lawson. wrote this poem, there were already a considerable number of people who had potential characteristics which were to develop into Australian later on. These traits in Lawson's characters in his poems and stories, may give us some hints to help understand what Australianism really is. In Lawson's writings, especially his short stories, people who live or stay in the Australian bush for their livelihood are called bush people, or bushmen and bushwomen.. Russel Ward explains the historical. background of the origin of the Australian bushmen and their ethos: ... that the distinctively Australian ethos which developed before 1851, sprang primarily from convict, working-class, Irish and native-born sources, and that it was associated particularly with up·country life.. In all these respects the first bushrangers were. more 'Australian' than anybody else .... , if bushmen were the 'true Australians', runway convicts were the first of the genus. The very word 'bushrangers' had become a part of the language by 1806 .... By the 1820's the phrase 'to take to the bush' had become a cliche, but the word 'bushman' did not become common until twenty years later.I6 Mter setting up colonial centres, such as Sydney, it seemed natural that people would go to the outback.. Especially, after the discovery of gold 7.

(14) in 1851, the number of fortune seekers who headed to the harsh interior of the country increased tremendously, but these people are not covered under the term, "bush people".. Ward explains that "the bushmen" are "the. outback employees, the semi -nomadic drovers, shepherds, shearers, bullock-drivers, stockmen, boundary-riders, station-hands and others of the pastoral industry".l7. Lawson's bush characters are people who were. engaged in those occupations. This thesis will examine the following two questions: 1) How Henry Lawson describes people, who, he believed, had made Australia, in his works and 2) How Lawson expresses their characteristics as Australians in his works?. Specifically, Chapter One reviews how Lawson's characters. change from his early years to the later ones, with the change of Lawson himself as a person as well as a writer, living in the transitional times of Australia.. Chapter '!\vo studies how Lawson describes the great influence. of the Australian bush upon people in his writings.. Chapter Three reads. one of Lawson's short stories, "The Hero of Redclay" and considers the deaths of the bush characters in the story_. Chapter Four takes up. "mateship", one of the characteristics which symbolise the Australian culture or "Australianism",. and clarifies its peculiarity,. especially. comparing it with human relationships of the Japanese townspeople in the nineteenth century.. Chapter Five discusses humour described in Lawson's. bush stories, and also examines how it is characterised.. Chapter Six. focuses on Joe Wilson, one of Lawson's popular characters, and explores the importance of this character and its role in Lawson's stories.. Finally,. Chapter Seven deals with convicts and the Irish who both had a great influence on the early period of Australia and helped the country own its particularity, as the Australian bush did.. This chapter also discusses how. those people are related to Lawson's literature. 8.

(15) It is important to note that this thesis will not discuss the culture and literature of Aboriginal people, the original inhabitants of Australia, who had lived on the continent long before Europeans discovered it. IS. about. "Australianism". of. Henry. Lawson. who. This thesis. lived. in. an. Anglo'Celt"oriented society although Aboriginal people have their own unique culture, and the people and their culture have certainly influenced European culture in Australia.. 9.

(16) Chapter I Change of the Characters in Lawson's Writings. The style of Henry Lawson's description changed in the course of his writing career, especially in the description of people, or the characters appearing in his poems and stories.. His description in the early years is so. vague that his characters seem to be impersonal, or not to have their individualities.. In the later years, however, it is more specific and his. characters are lively, having their attractive personalities.. This chapter. will discuss why and how they changed, studying some specific characters in his works and also Lawson's personal experiences in the bush.. Lawson lived in Sydney mainly in his life after moving to the city with his mother and siblings when he was sixteen.. There, he met political. people who gathered around his mother, and as a result of their influence, he composed several works about social reform in the very early years of his writing career.. As typically seen in his masterpiece poem, "Faces in the. Street", Lawson does not tell of a particular individual in the poem, but of ordinary masses living under far from pleasant conditions in central Sydney. People are described as part of a picture in which the poet tried to "draw" the truth about the transitional period heading towards a new Australia. People Lawson described in those early days seem to be impersonal. This is one of the notable characteristics in his early works, in both verse and prose. Andy, the character in "Andy's Gone With Cattle" (1888), is a typical example.. This poem is about a drover called Andy, but it gives. almost no information about him apart from his name.. The narrator, who. sounds like a member of Andy's family, talks about their situation and complains about Andy's absence: 10.

(17) Our Andy's gone to battle now 'Gainst Drought, the red marauder: Our Andy's gone with cattle now Across the Queensland border.. He's left us in dejection now; Our hearts with him are roving. It's dull on this selection now, Since Andy went a-droving. (1-8) Interestingly, the narrator uses the pronouns "our" and "us" instead of "my" and "me", which means that the feelings come not only from the narrator, but also from all the family members.. The tone of the narrator's voice also. suggests that Andy is the family leader who supports the rest of the family financially as well as mentally: Who now shall wear the cheerful face In times when things are slackest? And who shall whistle round the place When Fortune frowns her blackest? (9-12) In the poem, the narrator keeps on telling us how much the family members are concerned about Andy and how much they hope his safe coming back home soon.. However, the narrator does not give any details. about Andy, not even his age, looks, or personality: Poor Aunty's looking thin and white; And Uncle's cross with worry; And poor old Blucher howls all night Since Andy left Macquarie. (21-24) In the sequel, "Andy's Return", which was written just one month after "Andy's Gone With Cattle", there is still very little information about Andy, 11.

(18) except for his appearance when he finally comes home: With pannikins all rusty, And billy burnt and black, And clothes all torn and dusty, That scarcely hide his back; With sun·cracked saddle-leather, And knotted greenhide rein, And face burnt brown with weather, Our Andy's home again!. His unkempt hair is faded With sleeping in the wet, He's looking old and jaded; But he is hearty yet. With eyes sunk in their sockets But merry as of yore; With big cheques in his pockets, Our Andy's home once more! (1-16) Lawson wrote "Middleton's Rouseabout" in 1890 and this poem gives us a lot of physical information about a character called Andy. However, according to Colin Roderick, this Andy is a different person; he is Andy Page who later appears as a mate of Dave Regan in some of Lawson's short stories. 1 "Andy's Gone With Cattle" does not seem to tell us about the drover himself, but tells more about how his family misses him while he is away. And what is more, it tells about how hard the life of people living in the Australian bush generally was at that time.. In other words, Andy, the. character of the poem, only plays a role as a part of a picture which depicts. 12.

(19) the harsh environment of the bush in Australia. As for the impersonality of the characters, "The Teams" is another. good example. This poem was written in 1889 and along with "Andy's Gone With Cattle", is another of Lawson's masterpieces: A cloud of dust on the long white road, And the teams go creeping on Inch by inch with the weary load; And by the power of the green-hide goad The distant goal is won.. With eyes half shut to the blinding dust, And necks to the yokes bent low, The beasts are pulling as bullocks must; And the shining tires might almost rust While the spokes are turning slow.. With face half-hid 'neath a broad-brimmed hat That shades from the heat's white waves, And shouldered whip with its green-hide plait, The driver plods with a gait like that Of his weary, patient slaves. (1-15) The poem makes us imagine a beautiful painting in our minds which describes a scene of cattle pulling wagons and a drover organizing his stock. Like the previous poem, "Andy's Gone With Cattle", this poem has almost no information about the driver (drover).. Even his name is unknown.. Lawson's descriptions of what the driver says and does are so vivid that it is easy for us to visualize the driver's movement: He'll sometimes pauses as a thing of form 13.

(20) In front of a settler's door, And ask for a drink, and remark, "It's warm," Or say, "There's signs of a thunderstorm;" But he seldom utters more. (21-25) However, the driver's words are not specific enough for us to be able to imagine his exact personality.. What the driver looks like also remains. vague. This lack of information about personal details is also found in Lawson's prose.. Lawson describes the female character of "The Drover's. Wife" in the same manner.. "The Drover's Wife" was written in 1892.. It is. a short story, only ten pages long, but is undoubtedly the most popular story that the author ever wrote.. The dranlatis personae in the story are the. wife, her four children, a dog, and a snake.. The other characters including. her husband, who is away from home, appear only in the wife's recollection. The story is about an incident which happened to her and her children in a short period of about twelve hours. somewhere in the house.. One day, a snake COlnes and hides. The wife watches out for the reptile all night long. to keep it away from her children.. She reminisces about a lot of past. hardships until she finally finds the snake and kills it. The wife has no name; she is always called "the drover's wife".. Her. age is also unknown, but judging from the age of her children, she is probably somewhere around thirty.. In contrast to the two poems already. mentioned, "The Drover's Wife" gives quite a lot of information about the woman.. Her strength as a bushwoman can be learned through her actions. to protect her children from danger, and at the same time her weaknesses, through the stories about her past failures. reality.. However, the wife still lacks. She is not described as a woman with specific personality, but. described as one of many typical women who lived in the Australian bush at 14.

(21) that time.. Just like Andy or the driver in "The Teams", the drover's wife is. a model through which the author expresses the difficulties and bitterness suffered by people living in the bush. That Lawson had not had enough experience as a person himself was, probably, one of the reasons why he could not produce an image of a character with a strong personality. He was born and lived in the bush until he was sixteen.. He, as the eldest child of the family, mainly helped. his family, especially his father, doing farm work.. He, then, observed. people such as his parents, relatives, and their friends while he was doing his everyday work.. He must have seen bushmen, drovers, and probably. the drovers' wives, but he was too young to be a drover himself.. Therefore,. most of the bush characters Lawson described in his early works are probably no more than products of his imagination, given his limited experience.. Brian Matthews explains the reason for obscurity in the. descriptions of the wife in "The Drover's Wife": "... Lawson, it seems, had simply not developed his craft to that point (though the whole concept of 'The Drover's Wife' shows it is coming within his scope)."2 The characters described in Lawson's works gradually changed into those with strong personalities like Mitchell, Dave Regan, and Joe Wilson. The changing description of his characters seems to have been influenced by two events which happened to the writer in 1892.. One is a famous debate,. about the Australian bush, with 'Banjo' Paterson (1864-1941) which was published in the Bulletin from July to October.. The other event is. Lawson's journey to the outback, near the state border between New South Wales and Queensland. In the debate, Lawson insisted on his viewpoint of the bush and Paterson replied with his own views expressed in the form ofverse. 3 Their views of the bush were completely opposite, probably as a result of their 15.

(22) different backgrounds, especially in childhood.. Lawson grew up in a poor. family, hence his overall impression of the bush was negative. Paterson was also born in the bush, but went to school in the city and visited home only on holidays, which left him with many good childhood memories.. It. was probably difficult for Paterson, therefore, to understand the hardships which Lawson had experienced growing up in rural Australia. Paterson's poem, "Clancy of The Overflow" was written at about the same time as Lawson's "Andy's Gone With Cattle" and "The Teams". Paterson's poem clearly expresses his different attitudes to the bush: I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago, He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him, Just 'on spec', addressed as follows, 'Clancy, of The Overflow'.. And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected, (And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar) 'Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it: 'Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are.'. In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy Gone a-droving 'down the Cooper' where the Western drovers go; As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,. 16.

(23) For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.. And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars, And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended, And at night the wond'rous glory of the everlasting stars. (1-16). The setting where the narrator is thinking of someone is the same as that of "Andy's Gone With Cattle", and the descriptions of the drovers' journeys are similar to those of "The Teams". However, Paterson's poem gives a much more positive impression than Lawson's.. For example, the narrator writes. to Clancy, and receives an answer from Clancy's mate.. However, in. Lawson's poem, there is no connection between the narrator and Andy until Andy comes back home in "Andy's Return".. The acoustic impression of. Paterson's poem is also different from that of "The Teams".. There are. Clancy's singing, the kindly greetings of bush people, the sounds of breezes, and songs of a river: the sounds of joy.. In Lawson's poem, the sounds are. the drover's shouts, the cracking of whips, and the bellowing of cattle: the sounds of despair. Lawson started his journey to the outback in the middle of the debate with Paterson. During the journey, Lawson had time to think about what the bush and the bushmen meant to him. The journey was to ascertain whether his opinions in the debate were correct or not.. He wrote about his. experiences in the bush in letters to his aunt, Emma, during the journey. In a letter dated September the 21st, 1892, he mentioned his impression of the countryside he saw from the train window: "The bush between here and 17.

(24) Bathurst is horrible.. I was right, and Banjo [Paterson] wrong."4. His. remarks reveal that Lawson had been uncertain about his opinions during the debate, and wanted to confirm that he was right.. He also told his aunt. about his first impression of Bourke: "Country very dry and dull, but I am agreeably disappointed with Bourke. thought it would be."5. It is a much nicer town than I. It is interesting that he admitted that his. knowledge about the bush was not as accurate as he had thought. Lawson set off on the journey with a train ticket and five pounds in cash, heading toward Bourke, an outback town in north·western New South Wales.. In the bush, Lawson tramped, worked, camped out, and was often. hungry.. He spent time alone, was sometimes with some companions, and. was away for about nine months.. The journey was very hard for him. . because the bush conditions were more severe than he had ever experienced before.. Mter staying in Bourke for two months, he had two long tramping. trips along the Darling River, one before Christmas and the other after. Those trips were from the end of November to the beginning of February and the whole walk amounted to more than five hundred kilometres. 6 He wrote to his aunt during those trips.. One letter, dated January 16th, 1893,. was sent from Hungerford, a town located over the border between New South Wales and Queensland, reporting Lawson's difficult days in the bush: You can have no idea of the horrors of the country out here. Men tramp and beg and live like dogs. slept in what you can call a bed.. It is two months since I. We walk as far as we can .... But it would take a year to tell you all about my wanderings in the wilderness. 7 Lawson criticises bushmen in his early letter to his aunt, calling them "The biggest liars that ever the Lord created".8 In the final letter dated February 6th in the same year from Bourke, he made an interesting 18.

(25) comment about squatters: "A squatter who knew me gave me as much tucker as I could carry, when I was coming down, and a pound to help me along. Squatters are not all bad."9 For Lawson, who came from a poor. family with little property, squatters were wealthy people for whom he usually felt antipathy. During the trip, however, he realised that he had been biased against them.. Unlike his mother, Louisa, who was aggressive. and strong-hearted, Aunt Emma, an elder sister of Louisa, was one of Lawson's favourite relatives, and he was able to tell her his honest feelings about the bush in his letters. Lawson had negative feelings about the bush since his childhood, and his feelings likely became stronger during his outback journey.. Denton. Prout quotes A.G. Stephens, editor of the Bulletin, in order to explain how the bush experience influenced Lawson: "Lawson hates the bush; ... His six months' journey to the Queensland border in 1892 ... was like the journey of a damned soul swagging it through purgatory; and Lawson persists in looking at Australia through the memories of those six months." 10. In. addition, Colin Roderick points out that Lawson came to have two opposing feelings about the bush after his experience: "And Lawson was to remain all his life in a confusing relationship of mingled love and hate towards it [the bush]." 11 Apart from those hard experiences in the bush, what greatly influenced Lawson and his literature was his personal contact with people in Bourke. Soon after he arrived in the town, Lawson met with some men involved in local politics and composed some poems for them.. He also. made the acquaintance of local members of the Union. 12 Lawson's contact with the Union members certainly inspired him to create many masterpieces, including "The Union Buries Its Dead" and "That There Dog 0' Mine", both written in 1893, and "Send Round the Hat" and "That Pretty. 19.

(26) Girl in the ArlllY" which were written in 1901. Lawson had tramping trips along the Darling River with two men. One of them was eighteen-year-old James William Gordon, who was looking for a job in Bourke.. The other was Ernest de Guinney, a Russian aristocrat. who is thought to be the model of "Dr Lebinski", a character in "The Hero of Redclay" (1899).. The companionship with those men as well as the Union. members in the outback journey trained Lawson as a writer.. He turned. his attention to humanity by meeting, observing, and understanding local people and learning more about human nature. It was after his outback journey to Bourke that Lawson's popular characters, with precise personalities started to appear in his prose.. At the. same time, he started to describe his characters in much more details than before.. This transformation is obvious both in his verse and prose.. poem, "Dan the Wreck" which was written in 1895 is a good example.. A The. poem describes a man called Dan: Tall, and stout, and solid -looking, Yet a wreck; None would think Death's finger's hooking Him from deck. Cause of half the fun that's started"Hard"case" DanIsn't like a broken"hearted, Ruined man. (1- 8) The poem continues to describe Dan in detail until the fourth stanza, so it is easy for us to imagine what Dan looked like.. This is different from the. impersonality seen in the characters from "Andy's Gone With Cattle" and "The Teams",. The first line of the stanza gives us specific information. about Dan's appearances and the other lines suggest Dan's real 20.

(27) circumstances. The rest of the poem tells many positive aspects of Dan. Finally, it explains that his miserable appearance and miserable life are a result of heavy drinking, but he is a charming drunkard. A short story titled "Mr Smellingscheck" written between 1895 and 1896 is a prose version of "Dan the Wreck".. This is a short story with. extremely detailed descriptions of a man named Smellingscheck.. The. description of the man begins in the middle of the third paragraph: "He was a fat man, slow and placid." 13. Soon it becomes more concrete with. information about the way Mr Smellingscheck dresses: He wore a suit of cheap slops of some kind of shoddy "tweed". The coat was too small and the trousers too short, and they were drawn up to meet the waistcoat - which they did with painful difficulty, now and then showing, by way of protest, two pairs of brass buttons and the ends of the brace-straps; and they seemed to blame the irresponsive waistcoat or the wearer for it all.. Yet. he never gave way to assist them. A pair of burst elastic· sides were in full evidence, and a rim of cloudy sock, with a hole in it, showed at every step. 14 This passage is followed by a variety of descriptions of his behavior, from how· to discuss politics, to how to have meals, and the manner of his every action. These descriptions are very elaborate.. "Mr Smellingscheck" is not. like a story, but more like a human documentary based on the author's close observation.. The story has a clear image of the existence of a particular. individual named Mr Smellingscheck, unlike "The Drover's Wife", which only has a general image of a hard-working woman in the bush. In addition to those specific descriptions of characters, there is another important characteristic of Lawson's literature which became obvious after his journey to Bourke.. Some of his characters came to have two different. 21.

(28) characteristics, or a duality in their personalities.. In "Dan the Wreck",. Dan is emphasised as a person having two opposing characters. description is also found in "Mr Smellingscheck".. A similar. In this story, Lawson. insists that Mr Slnellingscheck is a real gentleman despite his shabby appearance.. This probably proves that during his outback journey,. Lawson learned how to observe people from many angles in order to make his characters rich with humanity. It was in about 1893 that characters with strong personalities, fIrst appeared in Lawson's works, especially in his short stories.. Some. characters appearing in Lawson's short stories like Steelman, Mitchell, and Dave Regan, are typical.. Those characters make their appearances n1ainly. in the short stories written from 1893 to 1900.. These characters seem to. have been created when Lawson was at the peak in his writing career, and they each appear as the protagonist in more than one story.. For example,. Steelman appears in six stories, Dave Regan, in nine, and alnazingly, Mitchell, in as many as thirty stories.. Each story is short so that it can. illustrate only one small episode of what happens to a character, and there is almost no connection between stories as far as the plots are concerned. The characters more or less changed their personalities each time they were in a new story.. According to Colin Roderick, Steelman is a parasite in. the fIrst story, a talkative humorist in the second, a fIxed character in the third, takes over a vicious character from Mitchell in the fourth, and fInally is a cynical messenger of Lawson in the fIfth and sixth stories. 15. Roderick. also explains that Steelman had to change to take over some aspects of Mitchell as Mitchell's character developed.l 6. Mitchell is described as a. "colloquial swagman" in the first three stories, and from the fourth story onwards he becomes an "educated traveler". L7 Generally, Mitchell's second character, who is a philosopher as well as a good bush story-teller, is the. 22.

(29) n10st popular. Dave Regan is the main chal"acter in nine different short stories.. He. is alone in four of the stories, and with his mates, Jack Bentley and Andy Page in the others.. While Dave Regan is a rather plain character without. his mates, he becomes a strong leader and causes numerous funny incidents when he is with then1.. Those three Inen are Lawson's model characters. who have vivid and distinctive personalities.. They are also characters who. have one strong definite personality, rather than a duality of characters. Others of Lawson's characters came to display a particular duality in their personalities.. That is a duality of virtuousness and secularity.. Giraffe in "Send Round the Hat" (1901) and Hannah in "That Pretty Girl in the Army" (1901) are examples of this. justice and benevolence.. Giraffe is described as a man of. He is always fair and never discriminates against. anyone because of who they are.. In the story, he sends round his hat for. people involved in prostitution even though his mates say he should not do it.. As the story goes on, Giraffe is described as if he was someone heavenly.. At the end of the story, however, it is revealed that he has left his girlfriend, who still loves him, in Sydney, and his fellow bushmen send round the hat for him and persuade him to go back to her.. Giraffe decides to return to. Sydney and becomes an ordinary working man. Hannah in "That Pretty Girl in the Army" IS a female verSIon of Giraffe.. Lawson emphasises the contrast between her angelic features and. her human aspects.. In the story, the girl always draws attention from the. bushmen and gradually becomes an idol for them. regarded as something heavenly.. She also becomes to be. However, at the end of the story, her real. nature is exhibited in front of the bushmen when she starts a speech for ChristInas Day.. During her speech, Hannah notices her missing boyfriend. in the audience, which makes her upset, she forgets her position, and 23.

(30) becomes just another ordinary earthly person. Lawson gradually changed his style as he grew as a writer as well as a person, and his characters also changed themselves according to his changing state of mind.. In his works, his original impersonal characters. gradually gained identities, then personalities, and finally some became divine.. It is also possible that Lawson tried to seek a mental haven in his. fictionally idealised characters like Giraffe and Hannah.. However, these. spotless characters are obviously not the main goal of Lawson's literature because he gives them back their human nature at the end of each story. He does not conclude his stories with conventional ethical sermons.. This. means that Lawson wanted to express real human nature, including his own weaknesses, and to appreciate it as it is. When Henry Lawson started his career as a young writer, his style was rather journalistic and people described by him were either anonymous or impersonal.. However, his style gradually changed, and the characters. in his poems and stories had vivid personalities.. That was partly because. his personal experiences, including the hard hours in the bush, trained him not only as a writer, but also as a person.. Some of Lawson's characters,. like Giraffe and Hannah, are described as superhuman or even divine, but they regain their essential humanity at the end of their stories. Lawson's popular protagonists, such as Dave Regan, Mitchell, and Joe Wilson, were also created in this transition, and eventually became the characters representing the men, Lawson insists in his poem, made Australia.. 24.

(31) Chapter II The Australian Bush and Lawson's Bush Characters. When Lawson was in his prime as a writer, he produced quite a few masterpieces, especially in his prose, which describe the Australian bush and bush people, the people who lived and worked there.. As the writer. himself emphasises how those people in the bush made an enOrlTIOUS contribution to the development of Australia, in his poem, "The Men Who Made Australia", the bush and bush people are the major factors to appreciate Henry Lawson's literature and also to search out what Australianism is in his work.. This chapter will study the Australian bush,. and the relationship between the bush and bush people described in Lawson's writings. Basically, the majority of Australians have always lived in the coastal areas of the continent. people. When the Gold Rush started in 1851, a great many. temporarily moved inland hoping to. make. their fortune.. Pastoralists had a golden time about the same time and made Australia the world's largest wool producer.. These incidents,. which happened. particularly in the middle of 19th century, drew people away from the coastal areas towards the interior, and this Australian nature has nurtured the character of Australia and influenced its people during that tinle. The Australian bush was different from English woods, the home of mysterious fairies and spirits, and also different from the Wild West, a symbol of America's exploitation and development.. It was distant and. forbidding, so that it was not thought to be easily conquerable.. In fact,. Australia has even now only developed the edge of its continent leaving a huge empty area in the centre, unlike the United States which has cities. 25.

(32) dispersed aln10st equally throughout the country.. Therefore, the concept of. the bush for Australians was completely different from that of Americans who believed they could aggressively exploit the land. Even though most Australians have not experienced the bush directly, they seem to have always had a strong image of it as a tremendous huge void.. In 1901, the whole population of Australia was still less than. 3,800,000,1 therefore, even city people probably had a vague feeling of. insecurity caused by their isolated surroundings.. China, whose area is. about 1.25 times as large as that of Australia, for example, also has a huge desert, "the Gobi", in its centre.. As its population in about 1900 was. roughly 500 million, at least 130 tin1es larger than Australia's, 2 the Chinese people probably did not have such feelings towards their void as Australians did.. Besides, people must have felt like they would never be able to emerge. again once they went deep into the bush because they did not have any developed transport systems such as we have today.. Thus, the Australian. bush was special for Australian people particularly during the pioneering period. Geographically speaking, it is almost impossible to say exactly how much of the Australian continent is covered by the bush because the concept of what "the bush" is seems to vary between people.. However, slightly. n10re than fifty percent of the whole continent has an annual rainfall of less than four hundred millimeters, which is the rninimum rainfall required for agriculture to be feasible. 3 Only a narrow coastal part of the continent has enough rain, eight hundred millimeters or more, which is needed for people to have a comfortable life. 4 The capital cities of all six states and the two territories are located within this coastal strip which is very small in cornparison to the area of the whole continent. The climate cycle of Australian continent IS unIque.. It does not.

(33) change on a 12-month cycle like on other continents; it changes irregularly in a multi -year cycle, due to the influence of and ENSO, El Nifio-Southern Oscillation. 5. This unusual climatic pattern often brings unpredictable. droughts and floods. 6 Especially in the bush, the meteorological conditions are nothing but cruel.. It is said that Aborigines, the original inhabitants of. Australia, never numbered more than a few hundred thousand in population. 7. Because they had to live by hunting and collecting, their. family size was small compared to agricultural peoples who settled down and increased their families. 8 The deadly climate and the unproductive soil did not allow them to enjoy population growth.. The Aborigines. survived in the severe environment for tens of thousands of years by constantly moving from place to place.. They never settled in one location.. Due to its idiosyncratic environment, it is no wonder that the Australian bush was seen as a tremendous menace by European people, and it must have been a symbol of "the unknown", especially for the newcomers in the early times.. It may have been even more threatening for. people who actually lived there for long periods of time.. The bush gives off. a strong image of desolation, even for people who have never been there. The bush, for the average Australian, feels like an alien place.. In the. 1890s, on the contrary, the Australian bush was positively used as a symbol of "one nation" in the propaganda leading up to the federation of Australia. Thus, the Australian people have long been concerned with the bush, no matter where they live in the country. That the bush was often taken as a theme by Australian poets and writers before Federation, in 1901, was attributed both to the climate of the time as well as to the policy of the Bulletin. 9. There was a growing. enthusiasm for nationalism among people in Australia at the time when Lawson started his writing career. The Bulletin encouraged and supported 27.

(34) anyone who wrote about the bush, hoping to raise people's enthusiasm for a federated Australia.. The bush became an important theme for the writers. at that time, and quite a few of Lawson's contemporaries also vvrote about the bush.. As already mentioned, however, Lawson wrote more about city. subjects for the first few years of his writing career.. It was not until the. outback trip in 1892 that he turned to the bush for the theme of his works. Mter the trip, he devoted the bulk of his literature to describing the bush although Lawson himself lived in urban areas for two-thirds of his life. The bush is the main stage also for the characters appearing In Lawson's stories.. In his humorous stories, the bush is an ideal setting for. them, helping keep them alive and active.. In other stories, however, the. bush is a huge, invisible enemy which always disrupts people trying to survive there.. Many of Lawson's popular characters suffer from various. difficulties caused by the bush.. Its severe conditions undermine their. hopes, weaken their relationships, and finally drive them to despair. In Lawson's bush stories, there are three major woes that his characters often suffer from in the bush; they are loneliness, Inadness, and death.. In some cases, one character has all three misfortunes in succession.. This means that long-time loneliness in the bush undermines the characters' humanity, and then, finally drives them to death. Firstly, underlining the seclusion of the characters was a typical way of Lawson to express the solitude of the bush.. According to statistics from. 1990, the population density in the western part of New South Wales was zero point one per square kilometre.. If the location of his stories is. assumed to be the area where Lawson travelled in 1892, the density is probably even less than that.. Even in areas closer to the east coast, there. were still only two people per square kilometre. 10 Bush people in Lawson's days were forced to be in such isolation. 28.

(35) A representative description of this is the second paragraph of his most famous story, "The Drover's Wife", which explains the circumstances under which the wife and her children live: Bush all round - bush with no horizon, for the country is flat. No ranges in the distance. native apple trees.. The bush consists of stunted, rotten. No undergrowth.. Nothing to relieve the. eye save the darker green of a few she·oaks which are sighing above the narrow, almost waterless creek. Nineteen miles to the nearest sign of civilization - a shanty on the main road. 11 This simple and curt description quite eloquently conveys Lawson's general notions of the bush. The sameness, monotony, and solitude of the bush are occasionally emphasised in his other works, and above all, he uses she-oak trees as an effective means of expressing melancholy.. She-oaks 12, which are also. called casuarinas, look like oaks, but are inferior to oaks as timber.. The. tree has about ten varieties and is distributed in all states of Australia. On average they grow to about ten metres, and some varieties grow over twenty metres high. Their leaves are very narrow like those of willows, so they rustle in the breeze.. Lawson often personifies the rustling saying. "She-oaks sigh", which helps emphasise the loneliness of a person living in the bush. "A Case for the Oracle" written in 1896, is a short story in which the character's loneliness is described in an unusual way. Lawson wrote two short stories whose titles include "the Oracle", the nickname of a particular bushman.. "A Case for the Oracle" is not actually about the Oracle, but. about one of his labourers, called Alfred O'Briar or "Al£' .. Alf is always stays alone in his tent, so his colleagues consider him to be a little sly.. One night, some men including Mitchell happen to hear Alf 29.

(36) talking with another man in his tent. voice another night.. Surprisingly, they hear a woman's. They secretly peep into the tent, but they only see Alf. lying "on his back in his bunk with his arms under his head, ... " 18 They conclude that the woman must have left the tent when she heard them comIng.. However, when they later hear four people, Mr. and Mrs.. O'Connor, their daughter, Mary, and Alf, talking in the tent, the men are totally confused and try to make the thing clear. '''Come in,' said Alf. under his head.. They visit Alf again.. Alf was lying on his bunk as before, with his arms. His face wore a cheerful, not to say happy, expression.. There was no one else in the tent." 14. Later, Mitchell says to Joe (the. narrator of the story), who is still puzzled: "'Can't you see it? ALF THINKS ALOUD.' 'WHAT?' 'Talks to himself. to his sweetheart.. He was thinking about going back. Don't you know he's a bit of a ventriloquist?'" 15. What the men heard is Alf's imitating the voices of various people, including women, in order to relieve him from loneliness.. The story, as a. whole, has a comic element right up until the explanation of the mysterious voices in Alf's tent is revealed. seem even more pathetic.. The surprising ending makes the story. Alf's pose, in particular, with his back lying to. Mitchell whenever he peeps in the tent, represents the loneliness that any bushman would feel during his time in the bush.. Although Alf is described. as a normal person in the story, his peculiar behavior ominously implies that he is approaching to the verge of a breakdown. Secondly, some of Lawson's works describe the madness of bush characters.. In "Rats" (1893), an old man has a fight with his swag, or bag. in which he carries his everyday belongings, and then, starts fishing in the middle of a cotton-bush plain.. In this story, Lawson expresses the strange. behaviour of the bushman in a hunlorous way. Another bushman's queer behaviour in "No Place for a Won1an" (1899) 30.

(37) IS. described rather sadly.. The story is about an old man called "Ratty. Howlett", who lives alone in an old hut in the bush, and his acquaintance with "I", the narrator of the story.. The man's solitude is elnphasised by the. description of the area where he lives, in the opening of the story: "He had a selection on a long box·scrub siding of the ridges, about half a mile back and up from the coach road.. There were no neighbours that I ever heard of,. and the nearest 'town' was thirty miles away." 16 In "No Place for a Woman", Ratty Howlett has lived in the bush alone for more than fifteen years. strange behaviour.. He is well-known among bushmen for his. He chases and talks to strangers whenever they. happen to travel in his vicinity.. "I", the narrator, has a conversation with. Howlett after he is accosted by the strange Ulan in the bush.. During their. conversation, "I" feels somewhat embarrassed by the old man's words because he only talks and asks about old things, some of which are from the years before "I", the narrator, was born.. Above all, "I" feels most uneasy. when Howlett asks him an odd question: "... and then, after a pause, he shifted uneasily, it seemed to me, and asked rather abruptly, and in an altered tone, if I was married.. A queer question to ask a traveller; more. especially in my case, as I was little more than a boy then." 17 Mter a while, Howlett asks "I" to come to his place for dinner which, he says, his wife would prepare for them.. When they arrive, his house is clean and tidy, the. dinner is ready, but the house gives no sign of a wife, nor even any sign of a woman. Five years later, "I" conles the same way again and finds Howlett seriously ill.. "I" takes care of him and hears the true story of his wife who. died in the first year of their marriage as a result of complications with her pregnancy. environment.. She could not get adequate treatment in such an isolated Her death had driven her husband to complete solitude, and. 31.

(38) then, to mental disorder: "And he 'hatted' and 'brooded' over it till he went ratty." 18 Soon Howlett's condition becomes very serious and finally dies when "1" brings the doctor for him.. At his house "1" finds the table set and. breakfast ready like five years ago. Howlett makes out as if his wife is still living, or maybe he even really believes it.. Perhaps he tries to ease his loneliness by pretending to be a. married man, like AIf disguises himself as being with his family in his tent. Alfis still sane because he still has a hope that he will see his family again, although he feels strong loneliness in the bush.. On the other hand,. Howlett has lost his mind after the shocking incident of his wife's early death and his long solitude in the bush since then.. In "No Place for a. Woman", Lawson expresses the fragility of human beings, especially those who have been in remote environments for a long tinle, through the character, "How lett" . Henry Lawson seems to have believed that the bush is no place for women to stay or live. doomed to die.. Quite a few of his female characters in the bush are. As a result, Lawson has been criticised for being sexist. because of his tactless treatment of women, combined with one of his important themes, mate ship , which represents only the men's world and excludes women, and also of his defamatory descriptions of women which are often found in his later works. Basically, Lawson did not have good relationships with women in his life.. He often clashed with his mother during his boyhood even though she. supported his talent as a poet.. He married Bertha Bredt in 1896, but they. had a bitter divorce seven years later.. Not only did his marriage end in. failure, but his Inistress died during his stay in London, between 1900 and 1902.. He gradually developed ill feelings against his wife, and then, it. seems, against women in general.. But he was taken care of, mentally as. 32.

(39) well as financially, by an elderly WOll1an in the later years of his life. Therefore, his slanderous descriptions of women are only the expression of his personal feelings, rather than a general criticism of women in society. His negative descriptions about WOIllen do not necessarily mean a definite denial of them.. The best example of this is "The Drover's Wife".. In the story, "the wife", the main character, tries to protect her children from a snake.. She plays the role of "father" in place of her husband, a drover,. who is far from home for months at a time. her enemy, the snake.. At the end of the story, she kills. The wife does not die, rather, her spirit is. transferred to her son in the light of the morning sun, which symbolises "hope" for the future. Some of Lawson's female characters toil in the bush, the same as male characters, and eventually lose their minds, as Howlett did.. For example,. Mrs. Spicer, in "Past Carin'" from "Water Them Geraniums" (1901), is an interesting character who has survived even though she has mental problems apparently caused by her hard life in the bush. Mrs. Spicer seems to be a more developed version of the wife from "The Drover's Wife".. Brian Matthews compares these two female characters in. his book about Lawson's prose and says: "Mrs Spicer is the drover's wife writ large; ... "19 This seems to mean that the drover's wife, even though she initially overcame her enemy in the bush, could become like Mrs Spicer in the future if she continues the same life vvithout any support from her husband or other people.. However, Lawson concludes the story just after. the wife kills the snake, without any specific inforlllation about her future. And, as we have already discussed in chapter one, the writer mentions little about the specific characteristics of the wife, making it impossible to clarify her personality.. Therefore, there see IllS to be no confirmation about the. likeness between "the drover's wife" and Mrs Spicer..

(40) Besides, Lawson gives different circumstances to them at the end of each story.. The wife, in "The Drover's Wife", survives even though the. bush environment is harsh to her. As the story's ending suggests, there will be a positive future waiting for her and her family.. On the contrary,. Mrs. Spicer in "Water Them Geraniums" dies in the end.. She is virtually. killed by the harsh circumstances of the bush.. And there appears to be no. bright light illuminating her future, except for her last words to her daughter, "Water them geraniums" .20. These words may suggest the. continuity of life for the plant, as well as expressing a slight hope for the future of the bereaved family. To express Mrs Spicer's madness, Lawson explains some peculiar characteristics of the woman in detail in the story.. After explaining Mrs. Spicer's physical characteristics, the narrator continues: She had an expression like - well, like a woman who had been very curious and suspicious at one time, and wanted to know everybody's business and hear everything, and had lost all her curiosity, without losing the expression or the quick suspicious movements of the head. 21 This description is hard to make out.. It could be interpreted that her. actions are not always consistent with her feelings or perhaps she has a touch of mental illness.. Here is a scene which specifically describes Mrs. Spicer's strange behaviour: .. , when she [Mrs Spicer] had a child with her, she'd start taking notice of the baby while Mary was talking, which used to exasperate Mary.. But poor Mrs Spicer couldn't help it, and she. seemed to hear all the same. 22 The description probably means that Mrs Spicer does listen to other people in spite of looking disinterested in what they are saying. 34. She is not.

(41) comfortable showing her regard for Mary, but she does actually take notice of her.. To other people, Mrs Spicer may look as if she has lost her mind.. In addition, the narrator mentions Mrs Spicer's habit of l11aking excuses immediately after she has said something embarrassing. always says, "Oh, I don't know what I'm talkin' about.. She. You mustn't take. any notice of 1ne."2:3 When interacting with other people, Mrs Spicer sometimes lacks consideration for thenl, however, her excuses help maintain her tenuous connection with other people and also helps her to remain sane.. The descriptions of Mrs Spicer's peculiar behaviour. emphasise her unstable mental condition. There is also an interesting description about Mrs. Spicer's voice: Her voice sounded, more than anything else, like a voice coming out of a phonograph.... But sometimes when she got. outside her everyday life on this selection she spoke in a sort of in a sort of lost groping-in-the-dark kind of voice. 24 "A voice coming out of a phonograph" probably sounds like someone talking through something like a filter.. Undoubtedly, a phonograph in Lawson's. days did not have clear sound like a stereo system today.. The meaning of. speaking "in a sort of lost groping-in-the-dark kind of voice" is more difficult to understand.. Brian Matthews puts the following interpretation on Mrs. Spicer's "groping-in-the-dark" voice: "But it is her 'groping voice' that reveals Mrs Spicer to herself, shows the extent to which she has been brutalised and hurt, turned away from a gentleness and gentility to which she has the last shreds of a genuine response."2.5 This interpretation does not directly explain what a "groping voice" actually sounds like.. Matthews. seems to mean that her "groping-in-the-dark" voice shows the various difficulties Mrs Spicer has been through in her bush life. Another possibility is that this particular sound may have been heard.

(42) only by Lawson, who was handicapped with hearing.. He describes a. rooster's crow in a similar way in a short story, "Bill, The Ventriloquial Rooster" (1893): We watched Bill, and sure enough he was a ventriloquist.. The. 'ka-cocka' would come all right, but the 'co-ka-koo-oi-oo' seemed to come from a distance.. And sometimes the vvhole crow would. go wrong, and come back like an echo that had been lost for a year. 26 The metaphorical description is also interesting, but again, it is very hard to imagine what Bill, the rooster, sounds like.. The nature of the sounds that. Lawson is trying to describe in those two exanlples seems to be almost the same, regardless of whether the sound is coming from a person or a fowL Lawson first had a problem with his ears when he was nine years old, and became deaf five years later in spite of being examined by an ear specialist in Melbourne.. He could hear a little during the five years his. hearing was deteriorating. 27. He may have heard sounds differently from. other people due to his poor hearing at that time. The descriptions of Mrs Spicer surely indicate her unstable mental state.. At the same time, however, they also tell us that Mrs Spicer is not. completely insane, rather, she is on the border line between sanity and insanity.. In this respect, Mrs Spicer has a similar state of Inind to AIf, but. she is not in total isolation physically like Alf.. She has her children and. married brother and sister living in the same district, who provide company for her.. However, her mental state is probably worse than Alf's because. she is always moving back and forth across the border line.. She feels it. herself and says, "I do believe I'm gittin' a bit ratty at times."28 In her case, there is a kind of dissociation of personality, but she see Ins to feel vague about it.. In the story, Mrs Spicer herself, explains, "1 somehow seem to.

(43) have got past carin'."29 "Past Carin'" are key words because they are also the title of the second part of "Water Them Geraniums".. The cause of Mrs Spicer's being. past carin' is not just the physical hardships the bush directly brings to her. Mrs Spicer explains how she used to feel when her husband went away: "I uster, once.. ... - the first tilne Spicer had to go away from. home I nearly fretted my eyes out.. And he was only goin' sharin'. for a month. ... He's been away ch"ovin' in Queenslan' as long as eighteen months at a time since then. . . . Besides - besides, Spicer was a very different man then to vvhat he is now.. He's. got moody and gloomy at hOlne, he hardly ever speaks."30 Her husband also has some kind of mental problem after his repeated long and lonely journeys in the bush.. The taciturn husband has probably. driven his wife into further alienation.. This is an indirect influence of the. bush on Mrs Spicer. Mrs Spicer has no experience of achievement in her life, compared to the drover's wife who succeeds in killing a snake, the enemy of her family, Because of her husband's droving, Mrs Spicer was left alone in the bush soon after her marriage and had to fight alone against many difficulties in everyday life, without the support of her husband.. For instance, she had to. treat the cattle when they were affected with "pleura-pneumonia", which is a lung disease of cattle and sheep. physicked them herself,. "31. The story says, " ... she bled and. When a bush fire broke out, she vainly. attempted to put out the burning grass by beating the flames with a tree branch.. Luckily her neighbours came to rescue her and together they were. able to put out the fire, otherwise, she might have been killed. Mrs Spicer has many children who must provide pleasure in her life, but they have to leave home as soon as they are old enough to work.. 37. Her.

(44) older daughter seems to be involved in prostitution in Sydney and her older boys are missing up country for a long time.. She only has the small ones at. home, and cannot give them a proper education.. All these things have. always troubled her about being in the harsh environment of the Australian bush.. Nothing comes easily.. The huge stress has gradually undermines. her healthy mind, and finally, she has loses her self-esteem and is past .. ). carln. At the end of the story, Mrs Spicer is petrified to hear that one of her sons is wanted by the police. after this incident.. She almost loses her senses and dies soon. The ending is shocking because Mrs Spicer's death. comes too suddenly and easily.. Her sudden death lnay represent the. insignificance of human beings in the "lnighty" bush, and also may represent the cruel reality that life can be so suddenly ended in the bush. A brief description about her death in the story makes the existence of Mrs Spicer all the frailer. Mrs Spicer's madness. IS. complex and thus impressive.. She is a. model character who tries to tackle all the hardships in the bush, but is crushed down in the end.. Commonsensically speaking, it is hard to think. that madness is the cause of Mrs Spicer's death.. In the story, she seems to. have been under enormous stress for a long time.. Stress itself cannot be a. direct cause of death.. However, long-term stress can lead to psychosomatic. disease, which can then become an indirect cause of death. 32 Some factors of stress are biological, such as hunger, overwork, and lack of sleep, and others are social, such as strain, fear, anxiety, and excitement.. Especially,. extreme fear combined with other factors can cause a fatal heart attack. 33 Those factors are exactly what Mrs Spicer suffered from.. This means that. a stress·stricken woman feels a tremendous fear when she hears her son is in trouble with the police, and as a result, dies of shock. :38. In other words,.