The Drover’s Wife was first published on 23 July 1892 in The Bulletin magazine. Comment on the language of the ending of a short story. Which aspect of Australian English does it represent? Support your answer with examples from the text. Why was that literary style important? What evolution was Australian English undergoing at that time?
She may not be able to do everything—the grass fire “would have won but for four men riding by who arrived just in time,” and she cannot stop the flood from washing away the results of years of their labor—because “there are things that a woman of the bush cannot do.” While this phrase might seem to attribute these limitations to her gender, it could also be seen as a frank acknowledgement that going up against the vagaries of Nature is not an easy feat, even for a strong bush woman.
Lawson’s heroine is not completely without dreams, despite her isolation and arduous living conditions. She admits to admiring the fashion pages of the Young Ladies Journal and to dressing up and promenading in the lonely, barren countryside as if she was in a city. It is a quiet, melancholy image but the salient characteristic of this woman is her resignation. She may admire fashion and think about other lives, but she knows what she must do out in the bush, and if she were to leave she would “feel strange away from it.”
