The female protagonists in “The Drover’s Wife” by Henry Lawson and “The Chosen Vessel” by Barbara Baynton are similar interpretations of women in 19th century rural Australia. Yet each heroine display their own version of strength and heroics, often represented through acts of sacrifice.
Both texts share character; through alienation, and isolation experienced by women in the Australian outback.
During Lawson’s time women were scarcely mentioned in narrative form and if they were, they played minor contributions to the plot, Rowley argues that gender relations and inequality are deeply embedded within Australian literacy, and cultural identity, he stated even when “ they (women) are the central figures, the story is likely to be an exploration of the nature and consequence… their confinement and their immobilisation”(32). Henry Lawson recognises the hardships of Australian women living in the outback. Other works during this period, dismissed the struggle many Australian women faced, Lawson’s text “the drovers wife” focused on a bush women, the sole persona in the text.
The narrator is detached from the text itself, the text is omniscient, allowing Lawson to depict an authentic reality of the struggles this women continually faces. He does this through the third…show more content… The bush woman in comparison to the woman in “The Chosen Vessel” seems more independent, she has adopted and been shaped by her surrounding landscape. While the young female from “The Chosen Vessel” isn’t as tough she was described as being a “town girl” she’s afraid of the cow. We see the greatest contrast in both women where one successfully scares away the swagman while the other woman fails to do so, ultimately sealing her