The Union Buries Its Dead Lesson Plan

How does Lawson's language separate the deceased young man from the rest of the town? Why does Lawson create this divide?

Lawson's language throughout the text creates a divide among the characters in the story. The opening paragraph establishes the narrator as part of a collective group: "While out boating, one Sunday afternoon on a billabong across the river, we saw a young man on horseback driving some horses along the bank... We didn’t take much notice of him." The language demonstrates that the young man interacting with the group is an outsider. This divide heightens the sense of isolation, a theme tying into the hardships of life in the Australian bush. The...