The Drover's Wife: Hardship of Life in the Outback
The short-story "The Drover's Wife" is written by Henry Lawson, Australia's most famous short-story writer and poet. "The Drover's Wife" is probably Lawson's best-known work, and was first published in the collection entitled "While the Billy Boils" in 1892. Lawson was deeply interested in the effects of the harsh Australian outback on people's lives, having himself spent 18 months in the bush. This was expressed in a number of so-called "bush ballads" and stories, "The Drover's Wife" being one of them.
This short-story has the Australian bush or outback as its setting. This is revealed in the two first paragraphs, where the author makes a short and precise description of the little house and the surrounding landscape. To tell the time of the story is, however, more difficult. The text gives us only a few clues to when it might have happened. The most obvious one is, "The drought of 18 - ruined him". First I thought that 18 meant 1918, but considering that the short-story was written in 1892, this must be wrong. The year referred to is most probably 1818.
The main conflict in "The Drover's Wife" is perhaps not so evident as we may think. At first it is quite easy to imagine that there is a conflict between the bush woman and the snake. The reason for that is that the snake is a threat to the woman. If she does not kill it, the snake can bite one of the children, which will be a disaster since it is nineteen miles to the nearest neighbor. The child would be dead before they could get help.
However, this conflict is only a consequence of the main conflict, which is mentioned in a sentence early in the text, "The drover, an ex-squatter, is away with sheep. His wife and children are left here alone." The main problem is that the wife is left alone to deal with the hardships of life in the Australian bush. In my opinion Lawson uses the incident with the snake to uncover the bush woman's struggles against the outback.
The point of view used in "The Drover's Wife" is the Third person Limited voice. Lawson has told the story form the bush woman's perspective. That allows us to see into her thoughts and feelings.
“I 'm really not into selling the school,” Hoyt said. “I 'm not going to talk anyone into playing basketball for me. It needs to be a marriage. They need to want me as much as I want them, otherwise it won 't work. I am going to let them know why it 's a great place for them, and why it may, or may not be a good decision for them. But at the end of the day, I want them to make the best decision for themselves, because it 's a huge decision moving forward. I let them know that they are going to be looked after while they are here by not only myself, but the community as well. It will be difficult at times, but they will succeed. This place was designed for them to be successful.”
“The Rattler” explores the conflicts between man and nature that seem inescapable. The narrator is taking a walk through the desert when he comes across a rattlesnake. After some thought, he decides to kill it and proceeds to violently slaughter it with a hoe. The snake fights back when provoked, but fails. The author makes the reader feel sympathy towards the snake and empathy towards the man through the personality of the snake, the point of view of the man, and the language and details regarding the setting.
The effect the reader perceives in the passage of Rattler is attained from the usage of the author¡¯s imagery. The author describes the pre-action of the battle between the man and the snake as a ¡°furious signal, quite sportingly warning [the man] that [he] had made an unprovoked attack, attempted to take [the snake¡¯s] life... ¡± The warning signal is portrayed in order to reveal the significance of both the man¡¯s and the snake¡¯s value of life. The author sets an image of how one of their lives must end in order to keep the world in peace. In addition, the author describes how ¡°there was blood in [snake¡¯s] mouth and poison dripping from his fangs; it was all a nasty sight, pitiful now that it was done.¡± This bloody image of snake¡¯s impending death shows the significance of the man¡¯s acceptance toward the snake. In a sense, the reader can interpret the man¡¯s sympathy toward the snake because of the possibility that he should have let him go instead of killing him.
Zora Neale Hurston’s short story “Sweat” is about the empowerment of Delia, the main character, as she tries to find herself and overcome her husband’s abusive strong hold. Throughout the story snakes are fervently discussed symbolizing evil and malevolence. Delia is petrified of snakes and her husband uses this to his advantage. Thus the snake in “Sweat” makes biblical references to The Garden of Eden and the Forbidden Fruit and the evil that can be so tempting. Just as Sykes uses the snake in “Sweat” to scare Delia and become powerful, in some way, Satan entered into the body of the serpent to tempt Adam and Eve.The serpent was the instrument the Devil used to do his bidding. At first Delia loathes the idea of even being in the same room
An Australian poem which depicts the hash rural outback Australian climate. A bit of background information is Geoffrey Piers Henry Dutton was born on 2 August 1922, at his family’s property Anlaby, South Australia. In 1940, Dutton studied at the University of Adelaide, where he studied English, History and French. His studies were interrupted in 1941, when he joined the Royal Australian Air Force; he spent much of the war training, to eventually become a flight officer.
I believe the conflict in the story is an internal one. I think it is the conflict between the old woman's will power and Mother Nature. She encounters many obstacles that would influence most people to give up but she has motivation to get her task done. These encounters include a bush catching onto her dress, a scarecrow frightening her and discouragement from a white man. She also had to climb hills, cross streams and crawl under barbed wire fences which is certainly not considered an easy task for an elderly woman.. If I was forced to deal with these obstacles I know that I would most likely have turned around but her will power was too strong to let Mother Nature win.
The visual imagery through the descriptive language paints an image of crops starting to grow in the shade and suburban areas. The harsh, unforgiving and dangerous Australian environment is illustrated through Henry Lawson’s short story ‘In a Dry Season’ through descriptive language and visual
the man had to remove the snake from the farm, but can't understand why he had to kill the
I share the opinion that the higher rate of HIV infection in the world stems in part from failure of personal responsibility and inattention to warnings from HIV/AIDS advocates, physicians and community organizations. However there are other elements that play an imperative role in the devastation that HIV/AIDS is causing in poor and minority communities according to the article “America’s Epidemic” by Gloria Browne Marshal.
Ward's main reason for writing "The Australian Legend" was to portray the typical Australian's perception of himself. He admitted that the book was not intended to be a history of Australia, and it wasn't. What the narrative does do however, is trace and explore the source of what he referred to as the "national mystique". Ward bases his work on the opinion that the 'Australian spirit' is somehow intimately connected with the bush and that it derives rather from the common folk than from the more respectable sections of society. He treats this assumption methodically, using literary and historical evidence. The majority of the evidence, are extracts taken from the Sydney Bulletin, a paper edited by J.F Archibald. Writers included "the three greatest 'nationalist' writers of the 'nineties", as Ward called them. They were Banjo Paterson, Henry Lawson, and Joseph Furphy. Ward believed that their works were hard fact - a reflection of the emergence of a distinctively Australian way of life in the outback. This evidence however is rather selective. It appears that Ward has only chosen to include the works that support his version of the 'Australian identity', intentionally leaving out works by the aforementioned writers that gave reference to anyone not fitting his description of 'typical', ie. women, foreigners, aboriginals and city-dwellers.
HIV and AIDS have affected millions of people throughout the world. Since 1981, there have been 25 million deaths due to AIDS involving men, women, and children. Presently there are 40 million people living with HIV and AIDS around the world and two million die each year from AIDS related illnesses. The Center for Disease Control estimates that one-third of the one million Americans living with HIV are not aware that they have it. The earliest known case of HIV was in 1959. It was discovered in a blood sample from a man in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Looking further into the genetics of this blood sample researchers suggested that it had originated from a virus going back to the late 1940’s or early 1950’s. In 1999, researchers had discovered that HIV is derived from chimpanzees native to west equatorial Africa. This epidemic is spreading throughout countries and infecting 14 thousand victims every day. Learning about HIV includes knowing how to contract the virus, understanding most of the people it affects, how to prevent the spread of it, and knowing what treatments are available.
Introduction: HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus. It is a disease of the human immune system, which is caused by infection with human immunodeficiency virus.
“Snakes” is focused around the marriage of a middle aged couple. Every year, the couple writes down their grievances, they read them and they burn them (McCorkle 166). The couple hit a dark patch in their relationship. They called this “The Dark Ages” (McCorkle 166). During this time they were angry with each other and had to face many problems between them. “The Dark Ages” was the dive they took. It made them appreciate the lighter, more easygoing times in their relationship. By knowing what it was like to go through such a arduous time, it was easier for the couple to overlook the smaller things instead of making a big deal of them. That dive into the darker parts of their marriage gave them a balance to the lighter times. It gave their marriage depth and meaning.
“Two decades after HIV first appeared an estimated 30 million people worldwide have contracted the virus; 11.7 million people have dies of AIDS” (Frankowski xi). This deadly virus has continually and rapidly spread to all different people. Around the world this virus is a major problem and is affecting more women and children then ever before. Although when this disease first appeared it was male dominated, but they have passed it on to the women and in which case they pass on to their children when they are in the womb.
Since the first cases of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in 1981, over 36 million people have died from the disease’s progression from HIV to Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, scientists generally accept that the HIV virus started in a specific type of chimpanzee in Western Africa. HIV weakens the patient’s immune system by “destroying important cells that fight disease and infection.” After HIV is acquired, progresses, and grows it turns into a much more lethal stage, AIDS. Because their immune system is heavily damaged and virtually incompetent, AIDS patients is increasingly susceptible to other infections. If medical attention is not provided for an AIDS victim, they will almost certainly die (“What Is HIV/AIDS?”). In this recent and ongoing AIDS epidemic, about 75 million people have been infected with the virus, causing 36 million deaths; but there is hope because organizations like the Samaritan’s Purse are doing their best to combat the disease.