The Concept of Distinctively Visual Explored Through Henry Lawsons 'In A Dry Season', 'The Drovers Wife' and Sean Tans 'The Rabbits' Samuel Rose 12th Grade

Distinctively visual refers to the understanding of how our perceptions and relationships with others and the world are shaped through unique written and visual texts. This concept and the conveyance of isolation and its impacts can clearly be explored through the short stories The Drovers Wife (1892) and ‘In a Dry Season (1896) by Henry Lawson and alternately through the visual text “The Rabbits” (1998) by John Marsden and Sean Tan. These texts utilize a plethora of literary and visual techniques which effectively help convey the impact of isolation and segregation through the hardships they depict.

The Drover’s Wife by Henry Lawson incorporates a colloquial and relatable narrative style which effectively helps shape the readers understandings of the hardships and difficult impact of isolation on the wife of a sheep herder. This can be reflected through the technique of descriptive language “bush all round, bush with no horizon”. This describes the place as featureless and lonely, thus isolating the woman from others. This effect is augmented by the use of alliteration “no undergrowth, nothing to relieve the eye, nineteen miles to the nearest civilisation’. This effectively allows the reader to envision the isolated landscape...