The Analysis of the Drover's Wife Stories
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MASARYK UNIVERSITY IN BRNO FACULTY OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN STUDIES Jana Laszáková The Position of Women in Australian Literature: the Analysis of the Drover’s Wife Stories Bachelor‟s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Mgr. Martina Horáková, Ph. D. Brno 2012 I declare that I have worked on this bachelor thesis independently using only primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. 2 Acknowledgement I would like to thank to Mgr. Martina Horáková, Ph. D. for her helpful insights and her inexhaustible patience. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 5 1.1. FORMING AUSTRALIA AND AUSTRALIAN IDENTITY ......................................................... 7 1.2. BUSH AND THE BUSHMAN VS. WOMEN ........................................................................... 11 1.3. GENDER BIAS ................................................................................................................ 13 1.4. THE ROLE OF LANGUAGE .............................................................................................. 14 2. THE ANALYSIS OF THE DROVER’S WIFE STORIES ...................... 16 2.1. HENRY LAWSON: “THE DROVER‟S WIFE” ..................................................................... 16 2.2. MURRAY BAIL: “THE DROVER‟S WIFE” ........................................................................ 19 2.3. BARBARA JEFFERIS: “THE DROVER‟S WIFE” ................................................................. 22 2.4. MANDY SAYER: “THE DROVER‟S WIFE” ....................................................................... 26 3. VARIATIONS ON THE DROVER’S WIFE STORY ............................. 30 3.1. BARBARA BAYNTON: “THE CHOSEN VESSEL” ............................................................... 30 3.2. ANNE GAMBLING: “THE DROVER‟S DE FACTO” ............................................................ 32 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................... 36 WORKS CITED ............................................................................................. 39 CZECH RESUME .......................................................................................... 42 ENGLISH RESUME ...................................................................................... 43 4 1. INTRODUCTION This thesis analyzes the position of women in six different versions of the same story about the drover‟s wife coming from Australian literature. Australia has often been perceived as a land for men, since from the very beginning of its existence, it is connected with adventure and danger, which are usually attributes ascribed to men. As a place with such attributes, it is supposed that Australia is not appropriate place for women. The aim of this thesis is to show how different authors deals with the same motive of an alone woman abandoned in the bush along with her children, whose only, but difficult task is to survive. I would like to make a close analysis of these six stories and show how women have been seen and perceived since the remote past. The bush is a very significant symbol of Australian land and so are the bush stories. But as long as the bush story is mentioned, the man is connected. The drover‟s wife stories are exceptional. In these stories the main character is a woman. The original one, “The Drover‟s Wife” was written by Henry Lawson in 1892. It is a story of a bushwoman who is left alone in the bush with her children and she has to deal with a dangerous situation when a snake crawls into the house. While there is a description of her fight with the snake, other fights of her life are being mentioned. In other versions the theme is very similar, but the stories are told from different points of views and from different perspectives. First work of my analysis is “The Drover‟s Wife”, a short story written by Henry Lawson in 1892 published in The Bulletin. Then the story by Murray Bail follows. His “The Drover‟s Wife” was published in 1986. Third story with the very same name was written by Barbara Jefferis in 1980. The last traditional “The Drover‟s Wife” was written by Mandy Sayer in 1996. Next story was written by Barbara Baynton 5 It is called “The Chosen Vessel” and was published in 1902. The very last story is “The Drover‟s De Facto” by Anne Gambling published in 1986. The thesis itself is divided into three chapters. Since as a part of my argument there is a claim that Australia is more connected with men than with women, there is a short background of Australian history provided in the introductory part of my thesis that is supposed to support that claim. It outlines why men are important for Australian culture, what independent identity means for Australians and why women did not have such a position as men in Australian history. There is also a short mention about gender difference, since the analytical part of this thesis is based on gender issues. In the following chapter, four stories about the drover‟s wife are analyzed; each analysis aimed at the gender issues. The order of these stories has already been mentioned above. The analysis starts with Henry Lawson‟s “The Drover‟s Wife, which is in this thesis perceived as an original story of this kind. The following stories are ordered chronologically according to the date they were published after the first one had come out, so there are stories by Murray Bail, Barbara Jefferis and Mandy Sayers. Each of these stories copies Lawson‟s model of the story with slightly different changes and their analysis is aimed at the similar issues from different points of view by different authors. Single analysis shows the position of women in Australian society, the attitude of men towards women and feelings of women caused by the given position and the unanimous attitude. In the next chapter two more stories are analyzed. These are variations on the primary story about the drover‟s wife. Though the theme and sense is very similar, the presentment is different in the settings, time or situation. The first one was written by Barbara Baynton who was contemporary of Henry Lawson and the second one was written by Anne Gambling giving modern point of view on the drover‟s wife story. 6 1.1. Forming Australia and Australian Identity After first observations of unknown land in the Pacific Ocean southwards Asia in the 17th century, the „official‟ discovery of Australia, known as Terra Australis Incognita (unknown southern land), is credited to the ship Endavour led by Captain James Cook in 1770. The new British colony was about to be established, when “Cook claimed the east coast under instruction from King George III of England on 22 August 1770 at Possession Island, naming eastern Australia 'New South Wales'” (Australian Government). Every untutored corner of this land was full of danger and adventure, so “[...] the idea of Australia had a long history as a land of desire, traversed in the imaginations of explorers, settlers and visitors alike” (Schaffer 1). It was not only the fauna and flora which attracted, but mainly the genius of this unknown place. The native people, the Aborigines, were considered to be the part of adventure, too. Though the relationship between newcomers and the Aborigines started well and for some time kept on good terms, based on mutual agreement of exchange various kinds of goods, “these relations became hostile as Aborigines realized that the land and resources upon which they depended and the order of their life were seriously disrupted by the on-going presence of the colonizers” (Australian Government). Thus the struggle for the land began. When the British arrived at the coasts of Australia and claimed it to be their land, only one question remained – how the British would use the new land in the best way. Since British prisons were overcrowded, the British government decided that New South Wales would be “settled as a penal colony – a place where Britain could send convicted criminals” (Australian Government). Many convicts were arrested only for minor offences and in fact, their life got better when sent to Australia. Instead of being 7 imprisoned in the small cell with other convicts, in the penal colony they were „given‟ a piece of land where they could work for the British Empire and also bring their families. After some years of service there was a possibility to apply for the „freedom‟ and so to be able to work on own piece of land with minor or no duties toward the Empire. “Convicts continued being sent to New South Wales until 1823, although as time went by, convicts were increasingly seen as a source of labor to build the colony, [...]” (Australian Government). The foundations for the new colony were laid. Another inflow of immigrants started during the era in Australia known as a Gold Rush. “In 1851, Edward Hargraves discovered a 'grain of gold' in a waterhole near Bathurst. The discovery marked the beginning of the Australian gold rushes and a radical change in the economic and social fabric of the nation” (Australian Government). Analogous to the Gold Rush in America, this discovery started a wave of immigration. There was a daydream of finding gold and of the successive enrichment. Australia started to be filled by the immigrants from the whole Europe, and also from America. “The majority of these new arrivals were British but also included Americans, French, Italian, German, Polish and Hungarian exiles. The largest foreign contingent on the goldfields was the