The Drovers Wife: Hardship of Life in the Outback :: Drovers Wife Essays

The Drovers wife  Hardship of Life in the Outback             The short-tarradiddle The Drovers wife is written by Henry Lawson, Australias most famous short-story writer and poet. The Drovers married woman is probably Lawsons best-known work, and was first published in the collection authorise While the Billy Boils in 1892. Lawson was deeply interested in the effectuate of the harsh Australian outback on peoples lives, having himself spent 18 months in the chaparral. This was expressed in a number of so-called bush ballads and stories, The Drovers Wife being one of them. This short-story has the Australian bush or outback as its setting. This is revealed in the two first paragraphs, where the author makes a short and comminuted description of the little house and the surrounding landscape. To tell the time of the story is, however, more difficult. The text gives us whole a few clues to when it top executive have happened. Th e most obvious one is, The drought of 18 - finished him. First I thought that 18 meant 1918, but considering that the short-story was written in 1892, this must be wrong. The year referred to is most probably 1818. The master(prenominal) contradict in The Drovers Wife is perhaps not so evident as we may think. At first it is quite easy to imagine that in that respect is a conflict between the bush woman and the snake in the grass. The reason for that is that the snake is a threat to the woman. If she does not kill it, the snake can snatch one of the children, which will be a disaster since it is nineteen miles to the adjacent neighbor. The child would be dead before they could get help. However, this conflict is only a consequence of the main conflict, which is mentioned in a sentence too soon in the text, The drover, an ex-squatter, is away with sheep. His wife and children are left here alone. The main problem is that the wife is left alone to deal with the hardships of l ife in the Australian bush. In my opinion Lawson uses the incident with the snake to uncover the bush womans struggles against the outback.   The point of view used in The Drovers Wife is the Third person Limited voice. Lawson has told the story form the bush womans perspective. That allows us to see into her thoughts and feelings.