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Abstract: “The Drover’sWife” is acknowledged as the masterpiece written by Henry Lawson.This article analyses its achievements in the environmental description of Australian outback and the characterization of the typical Australian bushwomen through direct wording,colloquial and humorous expressions, revealing the general themes such as family concern, mateship, poverty,nature, loneliness and colonialism during the nationalist period in Australianliterature.
Keyword: The Drover’s Wife;Lawson Australian; Bushranger; outback
Henry Lawson is one of the best known Australian writer whose innovative writing approach to short story is remarkable and worth notice, especially its direct wording, brief picturing and national concern. Many of his short stories typify the mationalist period in Australian literature,usually examining several themes such as family relationship, poverty, nature, loneliness, survival, and colonialism, through the description of the harsh condition of the Australian outback and the people who live there.
“The Drover’s Wife”, first published in the collection While the Billy Boils in 1892, presents the process of a bushwoman discovering, watching over and killing a snake.
The characterization of this story draws the most praises from literary critics. Lawson gives a detailed and realistic portrait of a woman’s life in the bush and tells the story from that woman’s perspective. As the story proceeds, the “gaunt, sun-browned” woman is presented with her fortitude, ingenuity, endurance and humor step by step. Living in the bush without her husband, she should struggle against many unhappy catastrophes. Lawson displays them mainly by the woman’s retrospective thoughts of a sequence of events, including the fights against a bush-fire, a flood, the pleuro-pneumonia, a mad bullock, the crows and eagles, even a bushman in the horrors and a gallows-faced swagman. This description completely and perfectly reflects the extreme hardship and difficulties of the Australian bush life led by that woman.
The humor employed on the dog Alligator is also distinctive. Lawson treats it equal with human being and uses “he” to indicate it. The dog is endowed with manlike character and feelings. Once “he” mistakes the hostess for a stranger during a bush-fire, “he” shows the regret by “his ragged tail and a twelve-inch grin”. That makes an interesting recall for children. The easy humorous humanism seems not only to release the overloaded harshness a little, but also to add the positive and funny atmosphere through the whole story.
To sum up, “The Drover’s Wife” deserves the appreciation in academic circles, except for its misuse of big words to the animal and the child. The achievement in characterization is distinguished. The woman is not given a name because of the author’s concern of universality, highlighting her as one of many ordinary Australian bushwomen and emphasizing that the story would happen everywhere and every time if only the bush life condition could not be improved. Besides, the environmental depiction also plays an important role in defining the woman’s character and the harsh condition of life. Lawson employs simple, unpretentious and restrained expressions to form his distinctive style of briefness and directness, as well as good sense of humor. He transcends the bounds of the unassertive short story form and writes something in which he could look at human nature and relations more substantially and expansively. It is no wonder that the English critic Edward Garnett compliments it as follows: “…If this artless sketch be takes as the summary of a woman’s life, giving its significance in ten short pages, even Toltstoy has never done better.” The comment provides the highest laudatory assessment to this work without reserve.
参考文献
［1］陈正发，张明. 大洋洲文学选读［M］. 安徽大学出版社，2000.
Keyword: The Drover’s Wife;Lawson Australian; Bushranger; outback
Henry Lawson is one of the best known Australian writer whose innovative writing approach to short story is remarkable and worth notice, especially its direct wording, brief picturing and national concern. Many of his short stories typify the mationalist period in Australian literature,usually examining several themes such as family relationship, poverty, nature, loneliness, survival, and colonialism, through the description of the harsh condition of the Australian outback and the people who live there.
“The Drover’s Wife”, first published in the collection While the Billy Boils in 1892, presents the process of a bushwoman discovering, watching over and killing a snake.
The characterization of this story draws the most praises from literary critics. Lawson gives a detailed and realistic portrait of a woman’s life in the bush and tells the story from that woman’s perspective. As the story proceeds, the “gaunt, sun-browned” woman is presented with her fortitude, ingenuity, endurance and humor step by step. Living in the bush without her husband, she should struggle against many unhappy catastrophes. Lawson displays them mainly by the woman’s retrospective thoughts of a sequence of events, including the fights against a bush-fire, a flood, the pleuro-pneumonia, a mad bullock, the crows and eagles, even a bushman in the horrors and a gallows-faced swagman. This description completely and perfectly reflects the extreme hardship and difficulties of the Australian bush life led by that woman.
The humor employed on the dog Alligator is also distinctive. Lawson treats it equal with human being and uses “he” to indicate it. The dog is endowed with manlike character and feelings. Once “he” mistakes the hostess for a stranger during a bush-fire, “he” shows the regret by “his ragged tail and a twelve-inch grin”. That makes an interesting recall for children. The easy humorous humanism seems not only to release the overloaded harshness a little, but also to add the positive and funny atmosphere through the whole story.
To sum up, “The Drover’s Wife” deserves the appreciation in academic circles, except for its misuse of big words to the animal and the child. The achievement in characterization is distinguished. The woman is not given a name because of the author’s concern of universality, highlighting her as one of many ordinary Australian bushwomen and emphasizing that the story would happen everywhere and every time if only the bush life condition could not be improved. Besides, the environmental depiction also plays an important role in defining the woman’s character and the harsh condition of life. Lawson employs simple, unpretentious and restrained expressions to form his distinctive style of briefness and directness, as well as good sense of humor. He transcends the bounds of the unassertive short story form and writes something in which he could look at human nature and relations more substantially and expansively. It is no wonder that the English critic Edward Garnett compliments it as follows: “…If this artless sketch be takes as the summary of a woman’s life, giving its significance in ten short pages, even Toltstoy has never done better.” The comment provides the highest laudatory assessment to this work without reserve.
参考文献
［1］陈正发，张明. 大洋洲文学选读［M］. 安徽大学出版社，2000.