Jack Mitchell
Often—usually, even—referred to simply by his last name, Jack Mitchell is an itinerant wanderer; an almost mythical figure who should be seen primarily as the fictional alter ego of the author himself. His stories are usually just sketches, not filled with great detail and almost always lacking plot. His purpose is to give impressions of the Australian people, its land, and character. He is featured in many of Lawson’s stories, including perhaps his singularly best “sketch story” titled “On the Edge of a Plain.”
Joe Wilson
After Mitchell, Joe Wilson is probably Lawson’s next most famous recurring character while also being recognized as his most complex and fleshed-out literary figure. In the collection Joe Wilson’s Mates, a goodly number of its 56 stories are devoted to Wilson. At one point in that collection, Lawson even steps outside the fiction to insert a section titled “The Writer Wants to Say a Word” in which he writes
“I had an idea of making Joe Wilson a strong character. Whether he is or not, the reader must judge. It seems to me that the man's natural sentimental selfishness, good-nature, 'softness', or weakness—call it which you like—developed as I wrote on.”
Tommy
Tommy is the title character of the Twain-esque tale “The Loaded Dog.” In this story, three men make the ill-conceived decision to mining explosives as a shortcut to catching fish. Instead, Tommy picks up the explosive in his mouth and starts running around the camp, scaring the men up a tree, behind a log and into a mineshaft before the inevitable explosion takes place. Fortunately, it takes place after Tommy has lost his prize catch to a vicious mongrel nemesis. The story is very much in the local humor tradition of writers like Twain, especially, Bret Harte whom Lawson admired greatly.
Jack Cornstalk
Jack Cornstalk is a character that bridges the gap between Lawson’s prose fiction and his verse, appearing several times in both story and poem. The name is a bit of Aussie slang for a bushman in general and one from New South Wales more specifically. The character appears in in three stories various titled “Letters to Jack Cornstalk” addressed to locations in England in which the author appears to be writing to Jack, but in reality Jack Cornstalk is a fictional incarnation of Lawson himself.
The Drover's Wife
One of Lawson’s most popular and anthologized stories is “The Drover’s Wife” which features a “gaunt, sun-browned bush woman” which could act as a definitive description of many woman in his stories. While Lawson’s stories definitely focus on males characters, male friendships, male bonding and male issues, he is highly regarded for a strain of progressive feminist thinking that stands out among the the literature of all male authors of the time, regardless of country. This particular female character emphasizes the strength, courage and protective qualities of mothers and wives forging the new nation of Australia in the unforgiving landscape of the bush.
