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296 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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1
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January 26, 1788 is when The First Fleet arrived at Australia. January 26th is known as "Australia Day."
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2
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When the First Fleet arrived in Australia, it contained 11 ships and 600 convicts--2/3 men and 1/3 women. The journey took about 8 months--exactly 252 days. The English who arrived there considered Australia to be an empty land--there was nothing there that looked like Western civilization. At the time (1788) there was somewhere between 400,000 and 600,000 Aborigines in Australia.
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3
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The day the First Fleet arrived in Australia, everything changed for the Aborigines. The Aborigines had a very static culture culture that was entirely untouched by Europeans. As the Europeans entered Australia, they became politically aware and organized. Later, the Aborigines try to change the name of "Australia Day" to "Invasion Day." The invasion of the Europeans was disastrous for the Aborigine way of life.
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4
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In 1788, the day the First Fleet arrived in Australia, there were 222 crimes that England said were punishable by death--including stealing someone's clothes or killing an animal that belonged to an English Lord (like a deer).
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5
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Prostitution was not punishable by transportation to Australia. British women sent to Australia were not prostitutes.
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6
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On January 25th, 1788, the first baby was born in Australia. 48 people died on the way over from England to Australia--of the dead, 40 were convicts, 1 was a marine, and 7 were children.
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7
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Arthur Phillip was selected to be the commander of the First Fleet and to embark on a journey of over 15,000 miles--an 8 month voyage. Medical personnel on-board need convict labor to create a viable colony.
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8
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Robert Hughes likes to use the word "Gulag" to describe the society put in place in Australia. Stalin created Gulags to punish and rehabilitate those whom he considered political foes. These "criminals" would have to work in remote prisons with miserable conditions. People often died in Gulags. Yet, in Australia, people were sent there for thievery, rape, robbery--not political crimes. Therefore, it's not really accurate to describe Australia as a Gulag.
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9
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Australia has been positively described (at its inception) as a trading post, a place of Globalism, and a mercantile base. Australia has been negatively described as a penal colony and a dumping ground. Most historians use the term "penal colony" when referring to the creation of Australia.
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10
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There were lots of punitive aspects about the creation of Australia--lots of convicts brought to Australia. When the British government tried to establish the Australian colony, they did so to relieve the criminal strain on Britain. They were, also, trying to find cheap labor to complete the arduous work involved in starting a colony.
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11
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Captain Cook was the greatest English Navigator of the 18th century. He sailed around New Zealand and found Sydney Harbor. The Dutch, who were the first to find New Zealand, mainly sailed on the western side of Australia. The Dutch did not see anything of value on this particular side of Australia.
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12
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When Cook left Australia, he also found the great barrier reef. Cook made naval charts that included water depth and descriptions of rock formations for everyplace he explored. These charts were still in use in the 1990s. HE ACCOMPLISHED THIS IN 1770. Cook died in 1799 when he was eaten by cannibals in Hawaii.
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13
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Norfolk Island is not very big, but Cook stopped there found flax--material used to make ropes. Ropes were needed to construct ships. Discoveries like this one encouraged England to quickly colonize Australia. There was a distinct economic motive for the colonization of Australia, and a fear that waiting too long to colonize would mean that the French or the Dutch would obtain Australia before the English. Also, Australia is close to China and India and was thought to be rich in natural resources.
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14
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Australia is an ISLAND, a NATION, and a CONTINENT--the only country in the world to be all three.
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15
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The Second Fleet sailed after the first fleet and was a privately contracted operation. The people who ran the Second Fleet were former slave-runners from America and were brutal as far as human cargo is concerned. Upon arriving in Australia, half of the convicts were sick and lots died after landing.
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16
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Another motive Britain had for wanting to colonize Australia dealt with the breakaway of the American colonies. Because of the successful rebellion, Britain could no longer send convicts to America. 40,000-60,000 convicts were sent to America--Britain wanted to find a new place to send them. In Britain, the crime rate was up, there were only a few prisons, and Britain did not want to build any more of them.
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17
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One type of prison in England existed aboard a ship called a Hulk. A Hulk was an old and barely serviceable ship that was turned into a cramped, unhealthy, and often corrupt detainment facility.
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18
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The typical sentence of someone sent to Australia was 7 years. Yet, due to the enormous cost of getting back to England, most would never be able to return to England. If a convict proved himself or herself to be a valuable worker and survived the harsh conditions--the convict could be granted parole
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19
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Arthur Phillip returned to England in 1792. About 100 of the convicts he transported received a grant of land.
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20
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14 years was also a sentence handed out those sent to Australia. However, the worst sentence "for the term of his natural life," meant a life sentence.
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21
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The worst single aspect of the penal system was flogging. 100 lashes were pretty common. This was the most dreaded punishment aboard British ships. In 1789, the year of the French Revolution, flogging was used to prevent mutiny. People who were flogged could be so reduced psychologically that they would do anything not to be flogged. Flogging could also make someone insanely enraged to the point of trying to kill their flogger, escape, etc.
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22
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People were dragged to Australia in chains to illustrate human sin and the need for punishment. Even today, Australians are very anti-authoritarian. There is a deep suspicion of anyone who sets themselves up as an authority figure. Many Australians regard politicians as "rat-bags." They don't have any Lincolns, Kennedys or Reagans. Australians are very hedonistic--pleasure driven to a large extent. Church also has a major place in Australia, but it is not central to the understanding of their culture as it would be in America. America was founded on the idea of human perfection; Australia was founded on the idea of human imperfection.
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23
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Up until the 1960s, the Australians were embarrassed about their convict past. Many families who were then model citizens with large landholdings came from convict blood. Now, they've completely overcome their shame and are even proud of it in some situations.
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24
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The first night the First Fleet stayed in Australia, Phillips gave all the convicts some rum and allowed them to have the night off. A wild, booze-driven orgy ensued. Very different from the strict, morally upright Puritans who were some of the first people to arrive in America. Arthur Phillip was the reason the First Fleet was a success.
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25
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Most convicts who arrived in Australia had no agricultural training. They came from the inner-cities of England.
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26
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Perth is the largest city in Southwestern Australia and is the most isolated big city in the world.
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27
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Explorers have always been looking for good land in Australia--water, other resources. In 1824, someone sailed all around Australia. Later, Lewis-and Clark-type expeditions were sent out.
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28
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In Australia, BURKE AND WILLS are the two most famous explorers. In 1803, Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark to explore North America--they discovered the Rocky Mountains, Oregon, the Trans-Mississippi River, and the Midwest (the future bread-basket of the world). When Burke and Wills were dispatched, they wanted to find a river equivalent to the Mississippi River. They found lots of rivers, but they were all dry--they are only filled about once every 6 years when some significant rain temporarily fills them up.
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29
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Later on their journey, Burke and Wills end up starving to death. No has ever found anything of value in the deserts of Australia. Australia has about 20 million people--Texas, despite being much smaller, has about 23 million people. Just about everyone in Australia has to live on the coast in order to survive.
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30
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In Latin, "Australis" means "southern." The Latin Phrase "Terra Australis Incognita" means "unknown southern land."
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31
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In 1814, a book called "The Voyage" was published. This book repeatedly referred to Australis as "Australia" to get rid of the overly-Latin sounding name of the colony.
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32
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"Survival Day" is another name for "Australia day." This phrase is used mainly among the Aborigines. "Australia Day" is not like July 4th in the United States.
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33
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April 25th was the day of the Anzac landing in Gallipoli, Turkey. This battle in World War I is central to the Australian consciousness.
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34
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As Sydney began to become more prosperous as a colony, the people there reluctant to receive more convicts. In one year, 3 ships from England would reach Australia. Thus, other penal colonies were established outside of Sydney. One penal colony was built on Norfolk island and became famous for its brutality.
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35
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Another penal colony was established in Van Diemen's Land. In 1853, Van Diemen's Land became Tazmania. This was done partly because Tazman was another Dutchmen to discover Van Diemen's Land, and the people there did not like the evil (demon) sound of their land. They also may have wanted to escape from the brutal heritage of the penal colony established there.
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36
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Settlers first moved to Tazmania in 1803--15 years after the first landing in Australia--1788. Between 1830 and 1833, the most famous penal institution in Australia was built in Tazmania. The institution was built in a city called Port Arthur, a city close to the Tazmanian captial of Hobart.
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37
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Port Arthur is the only penal building still standing today. In the 1800s, it was regarded as a model prison. The prison is perhaps most famous today as the first prison to employ the penal practice of solitary confinement. Solitary confinement is about separating and isolating the individual to force the individual to go through rehabilitation individually. Escape from Port Arthur was almost unthinkable due to the harsh security and the rough, choppy waters next to it.
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38
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Marcus Clark, an Englishman, wrote a senstational novel called "For the Term of His Natural Life." The book chronicles the abuses of the Australian penal system.
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39
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When the English first settled in Tazmania, there were about 4,000 to 5,000 Aborigines on the island. The English refused to recognize the Aborigines land ownership and decided to systematically relocate all of the Aborigines to a different island. The Aborigines suffered greatly at their new island, and, by 1876, the last of the 4,000-5,000 relocated Aborigines, died.
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40
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In 1788, there were around 400,000 Aborigines in Australia. Later, in the 19th century, there were only 67,000. The Aborigines consisted of hundreds of clans with different languages.
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41
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In the 1830s, a group of white settlers and the English Army formed what they called "The Black Line," a group of men whose purpose it was to remove and relocate the Aborigines of Tazmania. They marched all across the island, but managed to find only one Aborigine. The Aborigines were adept at using their surroundings to hide from the invaders. Yet, later on, the Australians were successful in arresting the Aborigines and forcing them to live on another island.
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42
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Australia has long been engaged in a debate known as "The History Wars." The debate centers on whether to describe the removal of Aborigines from their land as a genocide or as something else entirely. Academicians want to call the removal a genocide, because doing so contributed to the deaths of thousands of Aborigines. Others, outside the academy, say the removal of Aborigines does not fit the standard defintion of a genocide. A genocide is described as the systematic, state-sponsored destruction of a people based on race, religion, sexual preference, etc. People who disagree with those in the academy, Keith Winshaw most prominenty among them, say that the Australian government did not systematically try to annihilate the Aborigines. Genocide is a loaded term in the same way that Gulag is a loaded term.
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43
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Mary Bryant became known as "The Girl From Botany Bay." TGFBB is the title of varios ballads about what happened to her.
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44
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In 1787, Mary Bryant was put on a ship called Charlotte and forcibly sent to Australia. Earlier, she had been arrested by the mayor of an English town for highway robbery. She had looked for a job but could not find one. In her desperation, she turned to thievery. On the way to Australia, she gave birth to girl who she named, appropriately enough, Charlotte. The father of Charlotte, a convict, disappeared.
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45
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When Mary Bryant gets to Australia, she marrys a convict named William Bryant who was sentenced for smuggling. He had caught fish beloning to the English government and lied when he made an official report of how many fish he caught. He then took the unreported fish and tried to sell them. Because he was an expert fisherman, he was put in charge of the fishing fleet in Australia.
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46
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In Australia, William Bryant got caught smuggling again, and, this time, was flogged 100 times. He was deeply traumatized by this incident, and, when he had physically recovered from the punishment, decided to take Mary and try to escape from Australia. So, in 1790, he, Mary, and the children all boarded a personal boat belonging to Arthur Phillips and set sail for East Timor. Timor was in the hands of the Dutch. The boat went 1,500 miles and finally reached Timor--possibly the greatest open boat feat ever.
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47
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When they reached Timor, Bryant said he and the people on the boat with him survived a shipwreck. Yet, later on, Bryant starts bragging about his escape, is arrested by English authorities, and is sent, along with Mary and the children, to stand trial in England. On the voyage to England, William and Mary's 2 kids die of fever. When Mary arrives in England, she is famous as "The Girl From Botany Bay." Later, a personal admirer gets her out of prison and generously gives her 10 pounds to use as a retirement nest egg. This is the last thing historians know about Mary Bryant.
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48
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Mary Wade, another famous Australian woman, was born in 1777 and died in 1859. She was 11 years old when she was sent to Australia. She had a single mother who lived in absolute poverty. Mary was forced to beg for money and receive a paltry sum for cleaning up the streets. Eventually, she became a homeless child. During this time, she and and a 14 year old girl stole some clothes, were caught, and then sentenced to death by the English government. T
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49
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During her time as a homeless child, she and and a 14 year old girl stole some clothes, were caught, and sentenced to death by the English government. George III was the king of England at this time and suffered from a degenerative mental disease that allowed him to occassionally, have rare moments of clarity. On one such occassion, he, out of joy, decided to commute the death sentences of all the women sentenced to die.
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50
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Mary Wade arrived in Australia in 1790 aboard the first ever ship to be entirely composed of women and children. Mary Wade is said to have some 300 living descendants.
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51
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Kevin Rudd, the current Prime Minister of Australia, is said to be a direct descendant of Mary Wade.
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52
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On January 1st, 1901, the colonies of Australia unified and created a Parliamentary government. This new organization of the colonies was known as "The Federation."
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53
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The Australians were English until the late 18th, mid-19th centuries. America did not get a sense of itself until the 1830s. After The Federation, Australia was still attached to England, and viewed England as HOME. However, after the Japanese Navy routed the Russian Navy in the Russo-Japense War of 1904-1905, England withdrew the naval shiled that protected Australia. Soon after, England ceased to be all-powerful to the Australians.
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54
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The United States replaced England as Australia's primary protector in World War II. In World War II, the Japanese Air Force attacked the Australian city of Derby and killed over 200 Australians in the process. The Australians became very worried about potential Japanese plans to invade Australia, especially due to Japan's new presence in neighboring Papua New Guinea.
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55
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The same planes that attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941 attacked Derby in 1942. To assuage Australian concerns, the U.S. sent General Douglas MacArthur to survey Australia and convince the Australians that the U.S. would not allow the Japanese to successfully invade Australia. American Bombers used Australian air bases to bomb Japanese positions in Papua New Guinea and eventually forced the Japanese to leave.
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56
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After World War II, when Europe was in ruins, Australia invited Italians, Greeks, and others who had been displaced by the war to come and live in Australia. The Australian government would pay for their voyage to Australia. Many Europeans took Australia up on this offer. Today, the Australian city of Melbourne has more citizens of Greek descent than any city outside of Greece, and more Greeks than any city besides Athens, Greece.
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57
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Robyn Williams was in Alice Springs in 1977. Tracks was published in 1981. Tracks is not a novel--it is a non-fiction travel narrative.
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58
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Davidson had a journey which would give anyone pause--this is her account of her bold, foolhardy, and incomprehensible decision to set out accross the desert with a few camels. She tries to explain why she did this, but more than one reason exists.
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59
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Tracks is inherently intersting to female readers, but also interesting to males as well. She seems completely honest in what she reports and creates a convincing persona. One way she builds trust in the reader is by telling the reader about some of her embarassing or funny moments.
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60
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A lot of Australians aren't interested in the Outback and have never been there. Lots of them have not read Tracks, but know who Robyn Davidson is (The Camel Lady).
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61
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Robyn Davidson was born in Brisbane, Australia. Her father was a traveller, and her mother was an urban Jew. RD's mother killed herself when Robyn was 11 years old. At age 16, RD went to a boarding school. Afterwards, she lived in a commune. She was tired of living a cynical life of personal despair and didn't feel like she truly knew anything
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62
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The voyage RD took into the Outback was done at least partially to help her move past the death of her mother. She got to Alice Springs in 1977.
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63
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In 1976, the Whitman Government had gone out of power. The Territorial Land Act of 1976 gave Aborigines their tribal lands back. The fascination with Aborigines reaches new heights when lots of people go to Alice Springs to help Aborigines.
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64
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One of the people she met was named Rick Smolan. Smolan started a series called "A Day in the Life of ..." (U.S.S.R, USA, France). In 1992, Smolan and Davidson teamed up to write "From Alice to Ocean." At the time, Davidson was using her unskilled boyfriend as her agent, thus causing her to not make much money off of the book.
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65
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In 1982, Robyn Davidson was living in Sydney. Tracks had come out the year before, and she had met Bruce Chapman, a man who later died of AIDS. Salman Rushdie, a friend of Chapman, had told him about Tracks; shortly afterwards, Chapman and Davidson were living together in London. Chapman and Davidson, as a couple, were a celebrated pair in London until the two broke up in 1988. Salman Rushkie was famous for his publication of Satanic verses--a publication which caused Ayatollahs in the Middle East to offer a million dollars to any man who killed him.
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66
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Davidson moved to New York in the late 1980s and was given a place to stay by Rober Hughes, himself an Australian expatriate like Davidson. RD described herself as a nomad who explored other cultures.
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67
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"The Dead Heart" and "The Red Heart" refer to the center of Australia's mainland.
"Shout youze a beer" means "Buy you a beer." In Australia, to shout someone a beer means you buy someone a beer. Then, once you have completed your beer, the other person will shout you a beer--therby returning the favor. This can go on for a long time. |
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68
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"Troppo" means to lose your mind in the heat of the tropics. This phrase is also used in Australia.
"Accas" are academics. "Truckie" refers to a truck driver. "Tazzie" refers to Tazmania. "ie" is added onto a lot of words in Australia to create unique Australian slang. |
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69
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On page 32, RD talks of how the lawyers, the educated people, and the police were much more racist than the other bar patrons. You'd think it would be the other way around.
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70
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"Poofter" is the British and Australian word for homosexual. RD mentions Poofter bars in Australia.
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71
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Davidson becomes laughingstock by telling others that she wants to cross the desert with a few camels. Basically, she plunges herself into a situation that requires her to learn self-reliance.
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72
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Germaine Greer was once a major feminist and wrote a book called "The Female Eunuch" in 1971. She was an Australian expatriate living in Britain.
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73
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Jill Ker Conway was also an Australian expatriate and she came to the United States. She became president of Smith College in Massachusetts. She wrote "Road to Corraine." Conway was known as an angry feminist.
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74
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At the bar, RD resents having to peform what was seen as the traditional female duty of nurturing drunken men at the bar.
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75
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"Whinging" is the British/Australian term for whining.
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76
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On page 34, RD says that the men, in the 1840s, realized that they were missing two very important things, sheep and women. To solve this problem, they imported these products. RD's assertion is very inaccurate--women had been a part of Australian life since its inception.
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77
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"Abbos" is a deragotory Australian term for Aborigines.
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78
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Robyn Davidson describes the typical outback male as "biased, bigoted, boring, and above all, brutal." p.34. She viewed the outback male as abusive.
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79
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A "wog" is a derogatory Australian term for someone who is not white.
The Australian term "Pom" is short for "Pommie." A Pommie is a derogatory term for an Englishman. This word supposedly originated when Australian school children make fun of the supposedly bright pink cheeks (like pomgranites) of the Englishmen and women who were making their first trip to Australia. |
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80
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"Kyke" is a derogatory term for Jews. "Outback" is a 20th century word which is the preferred term for the Australian wilderness.
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81
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The archetypical hippie was drawn to Alice Springs. Davidson finds hippies there, but does not want to get too involved with them. Eventually, she becomes known as The Camel Lady, an name which symbolizes the town's fascination with and mockery of, Robyn Davidson.
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82
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Ayers Rock is also known as Uluru. Uluru is the Aborigine name for Ayer's Rock. The Aborigine's do not like having their rock called Ayer's Rock because to them, it is Uluru. Yet, the Australian tourist industry felt that Uluru was too hard to pronounce and was not distinctive enough to convince tourists to see it. Thus, the title Ayer's Rock was given to it.
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83
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Ocker is a fairly recent word from the 1960s and 1970s meaning redneck. An Ocker is basically a crude, professional Australian male. The Ocker is not originally part of the bust, but a man from an urban setting. "Stubbie" is an Australian term for a short, compact beer.
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84
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Robyn Davidson was drawn to the National Geographic because it promised to pay for her trip. She wrote them a proposal, they accepted, and agreed to fund her expedition.
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85
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When Davidson refers to NAT GEO taking photos of Aborigines and giving them beads and mirrors, she is referring to how natives could sometimes be mystified by the most cheap and primitive of western items. She believed that when Aborigines were photographed and given such things, they were being exploited. When the British first came to America, they handed out beads and mirrors to natives.
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86
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Whatever the Aborigines felt for her photographer, Rick, they also felt for Robyn. When Rick takes photos of Aborigines, the Aborigines become angry.
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87
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Robyn was reluctant to involve herself with the National Geographic because she felt that doing so was like accepting dirty money.
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88
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After completing her expedition, she wrote an account of her journey for NAT GEO. Davidson was dissatisfied with this particular account, however, and wrote an extended version (10,000 words) for a British Newspaper. After she published this edition of her journey, she was still dissatisfied and felt she needed to make a book out of her journey.
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89
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On page 127 of Tracks, Davidson states her belief that Australia has been at war with Aborigines for over 100 years.
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90
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For a long time, the Australian government used to take Aborigine (and hal-Aborigine) children from their Aborigine families and place them in white families. Children would not be raised Aborigine--they would be raised according to white cultural traditions. Thus, the half-black part of half-aborigine children would be stifled and the white part of them would be relentlessly promoted. With marriage and time, the Australian government felt the black part of half-Aborigine children would die out. This system of relocation and re-education was most intense during the 1920s and 1930s, and lasted until the 1970s. 100,000 children were taken from their homes to protect children and maintain racial purity.
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91
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In 1971, Nicolas Roeg directed the movie Walkabout. Roeg is an Englishman--because of this, some say the film is not an authentic Australian film. This view is rediculous, however--for the film is about Australia and its culture.
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92
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During the movie, the imaginary guy on the camel represents the central consciousness of the film--the boy. This is something the boy has read about.
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93
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The movie Walkabout is based on a young adult novel by James Vance Marshall called Walkabout. Basically, two children are travelling with their parents in an airplane across the outback until the plane crashes, the parents are killed, and the children are forced to survive in the outback with guidance from an Aborigine.
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94
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The movie Walkabout opens with a scene of brickwalls. Then we see the outback. Shortly after that, we see school girls receiving voice lessons in a school which requires them to have a uniform. Then we see the little boy going to a another school which requires uniforms. The father wears his uniform as stands in front of an office desk, then goes out to the outback. The father has been fired and can't deal with the grief it causes him.
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95
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The father has been fired from his job and has no communication with his wife and children. When he comes home, his wife is preparing a picnic for them.
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96
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When they get to the outback, the father shoots at his children and then kills himself. He drove out in the middle of nowhere until he ran out of gas--then, he used the remaining gas to set the car on fire. After that, he kills himself.
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97
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The kids try to get back to Adelaide, where they are from, yet, the film shows them to be from Sydney--Sydney Bridge is shown in the opening sequences of the movie.
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98
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The Radio the kids carry with them has lots of things about Science, creation of the Earth, math, etc. Yet, the radio doesn't mean as much in the outback. In the Outback, the radio isn't needed to survive.
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99
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Jenny Agutter played the girl, The Aborigine guy has been in many, many Australian films.
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100
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Walkabout has a very rich history. It was once seen as a racist term used to describe Aborigine's who wouldn't show up to work for a month--white's would say they went on a "walkabout."
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101
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When the little boy was hanging upside down when carried by his sister--he sees the oasis--Australia is known as "downunder." This scene is meant to show how strange Australia is.
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102
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The girl doesn't show any emotion towards the Aborigine. This is a British trademark--she is trying to keep the knowledge of what happened to her father hidden from the boy.
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103
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The most emotion the girl shows towards the Aborigine comes when she is smiling and laughing as she rides on his back across a river. Then, after that, she symbolically touches a fence, and realizes that she is back in her world now. After this moment, she loses feelings for the Aborigine
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104
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Towards the end of the movie the girl and boy are in uniform--the clothes act as a definition of their culture. The boy's consciousness grows throughout the film--he is able to communicate with the Aborigine through words and signs. The girls consciousness, however, does not grow. She can't wait to get back to civilization.
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105
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During one scene, the Aborigine walks them through a forest-type area. She is walking with a makeshift umbrella--like a victorian queen. The boy is telling a story that the girl also knows--they share the same culture. The Aborigine doesn't relate to the story in the same way they do because he doesn't share the same culture they do. When the Aborigine doesn't relate to the boy's toy soldier, he just tosses it away.
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106
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The weather crew scene is the most bizarre scene in the whole movie. The only link between this scene and the rest of the movie comes when the boy finds a weather balloon in his journey with his sister and the Aborigine.
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107
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The scene with the neaked girl swimming in a pond is Edenic in nature.
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108
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The scene with the Aborigine's making stereotypical Aborigine art for the oppressive white man is meant to show that Aborigines are exploited and not getting paid fairly for their work. The white man who runs the operations of the plaster facility would be considered a red neck by other Australians.
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109
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The STOLEN GENERATION refers to the 100,000 Aborigine children who were removed from their Aborigine families. Between 1869 and the 1970s, 100,000 children were taken from their homes and placed in white families. Most Australians didn't know anything about this. The term "stolen" was first used in 1923 in a newspaper article. Later, a book called "Stolen Generation" highlights the controversy surrounding the policies of the Australian government.
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110
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Sally Morgan wrote "My Place," a widely read book which allowed many people to learn more about the Stolen Generation. This book is classified as a "therapeutic auto-biographical memoir."
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111
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The apology to the victims of the Stolen Generation is relevant because the victims are still alive. An apology for other crimes doesn't seem as relevant since the victims are no longer and lives and most Australians were not responsible for the actions which caused Aborigines to become victims.
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112
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"Rabbit Proof Fence" is a film about the Stolen Generation. Kenneth Branagh plays a government official whose job is to determine how to make Aborigines white. The Aboriginal guide that helps Branagh is the same guy from Walkabout.
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113
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The first scene of the movie Walkabout features strange music--music that makes use of a diggery dune. A diggery dune is a type of long horn.
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114
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Aborigines may have put dead bodies in trees to allow birds to pick them clean. Some Aborigines also claim that they must die next to the tree under they which they were born.
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115
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The pile of bones the Aborigine lies in look like Buffalo Bones. Buffaloes were slaughtered not to preserve a way of life but to provide paying patrons with a delicacy. There is a scene in the movie where a man kills a bull just to get a particular organ--confirms the buffalo bones scene.
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116
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When the Aborigine dances in front of the girl, he is most likely doing so to court her sexually. The girl, however, wants to see it as invitation for him to say goodbye. She probably says this to avoid alarming her little brother.
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117
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After being rejected by the girl, the Aborigine experiences a profound sadness. In some ways, you could view it as the death of his way of life. The flowers he carries in his hands could represent positive things like courtship. He might've killed himself to mourn his rejection.
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118
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When the Aborigine takes the boy and girl to the top of the mountain to see rock paintings, the boy says--"He might take us to the moon." The next scene is of a weather crew.
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119
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The metal mine is the ugliest scene in the whole movie--the metal mine represents the failure of urban-development-venture capitalism.
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120
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The mean man in a deserted town, the one with the incessantly running sprinkler over a yard no one but himself ever sees, is similar to the white who exploits the Aborigines in his statue-making factory.
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121
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The failure of the girl to understand and appreciate her experience is a key theme in the movie. After hearing from the boy that they were near a road, she replies purposefully, "I knew we were getting somewhere." She can't wait to get back to civilization--doesn't embrace the freedom of the Outback.
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122
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The ending of Walkabout replicates the opening of Walkabout. The girl, now a married woman, is in the same building her father was in. Her husband comes in and says they can have a 2 week vacation together. She is prepairng a special meal--an organ--like the exact organ the hunter took out of the water buffalo. Now, she is preparing it, having purchased it as a delicacy.
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123
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The cigarrettes she smokes and the organ-meat act as stimulants for her--she needs something to stimulate her erotic impulses. This is confirmed when she flashes back to the Aborigine in the Outback. She dreams of the Eden she lost, as her brother, herself, and the Aborigine were all neaked together in a beautiful pond. In the original scene, the one earlier in the movie, she was by herself. But, in her memory at the end of the movie, they are all together, and they are all neaked.
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124
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In the original Edenic scene, the girl swims neaked in the water while the Aborigine hunts for food. Eroticism with the Aborigine seemed natural. Yet, as the woman gazes off into her memory while her husband tells her of their vacation, it makes it seem as though eroticism with her husband is forced.
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125
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Eddie is an old Aborigine who helped Robyn Davidson across a particularly barren and less-travelled portion of the Outback.
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126
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Bajo Patterson is the most well-known poet in Australia. "Clancy of the Overflow" is one of his most popular poems.
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127
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Clancy of the Overflow make use of internal rhymes like letter and better.
You could write a letter to someone in the outback, but, at this time, you never knew when it would arrive or when it would be claimed by the person you sent it to. |
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128
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In the poem, the man sings to the cattle to keep them as calm and relaxed as possible.
"And he sees a vision splendid of the sunlight plains extended." This is the most famous line in Australian literature |
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129
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In "Clancy of the Overflow," the narrator is a person trapped in the heart of a cramped city, as opposed to the drover, a man in the open, pure plains.
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130
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The opening of Patterson's poem sounds like the beginning of Walkabout due to its mention of the noise of the city.
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131
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"Clancy of the Overflow" paints a very romantic picture of the pleasures and attractions of the Outback for a cramped city dweller.
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132
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Waltzing Mathilda is like the unofficial national anthem of Australia. The Seeker and Slim Dusty performed famous version of the song.
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133
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God Save the Queen was the Australian National Anthem for a long time. This was changed due to it being the same national anthem used by Britain.
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134
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Advance Australia Fair is the modern Australian national anthem.
During the 1970s, Sons of Australia was the Australian national anthem. |
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135
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The content of Waltzing Mathilda (thievery, suicide) make it unpopular with Australia's political leaders.
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136
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Waltzing Mathilda makes use of many unusual Australian words. "Billabong" is a deep pool of water. "Billy" refers to tea. "Jumbuck" is sheep. "Tucker" is food. "Tucker Bag" is a bag used to carry food.
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137
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In Robyn Davidson's "Tracks," many Aborigine's and rural whites enjoyed the music of country singer Slim Dusty.
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138
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In Waltzing Mathilda, the "Swagman" is a homeless guy who steals a sheep and, when confronted by three soldiers who intend to arrest him, drowns himself in a billabong.
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139
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The swagman would be similar to a "squatter" in American English. In American history, a squatter is someone who settled the outer perimeter of a rancher's land. Squatters in America were either hung, shot, or run off the land they claimed for themselves.
The American term "Squatter" would not work in Australian English, however, because, in Australia, a squatter is someone who is a wealthy member of society--someone who is part of the upper class. |
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140
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In the 1890s, Australia was in a massive drought. During the drought, a major economic depression hit the world, and greatly hurt the economy of Australia. "Waltzing Mathilda" was writtend during this time.
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141
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The Yellow Rose of Texas was Santa Anna's mistress. Yellow, referred to a mulattoe.
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142
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"The City Bushman" attacks Patterson by saying that people in cities don't know how difficult life in the outback really is. The author resents Patterson's glorification of it.
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143
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In the mid 1840s, people were becoming restless in the midst of the abundance surrounding them. The railway and electrification connected the east to the west in ways never thought possible, and mining industries contributed to the industrial supplies of the rest of the country.
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144
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The discovery of iron, gold, and copper in the west brought many settlers to western states like Colorado. Mines made it economically feasible for rail roads and electricity to move out west.
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145
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Many new technologies made growth and expansion out west possible. Western sates were very dependent on electricity, and populations tended to congregate around large urban centers. 84 percent of the population in western states existed in large urban centers.
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146
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In one mine in California, light was used make working in the mine possible at night. A lighted path, called an ARKLIGHT, was installed to make this possible. Being able to use artificial light in mines eliminated the normal, sunlight-driven workday. With the arklight system, it was possible to work all day and all night.
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147
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Eventually, electrically powered machines reduced the amount of labor needed in mining. With the reduced labor, more control was given to the managerial class which operated the machines. Because there were more machines, the size of the managerial class grew substantially--creating additional fears of an American aristocracy.
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148
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The west did not have abundant water supplies like the east--it was a much more arid region. The land was also more rough and mountainous than the east.The west needed to find some other way to produce electrical power.
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149
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Although there were lots of roads in the early 1800s, many of them were very rough and ill-cared for. Stones, tree stumps, and other natural obstacles were often found as part of commonly used roads.
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150
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The canal is an important innovation in transportation technology. The Erie Canal was started on July 4th, 1817, and completed in 1825. By its completion, the Erie Canal was over 300 miles long and could move people and goods very easily. By 1840, Americans had built 3,000 miles of canals.
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151
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Despite the success of the canal system in the United States, the rail road was quickly becoming more popular. The rail road was seen as a work of art--blending in seamlessly with the natural environment. Nature, with the rail road, was believed to yield to man.
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152
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The world's first rail road was built in England in 1825--the same year the Erie Canal was finished. Baltimore and Ohio were contracted to build 13 miles of rail road. Over 30,000 miles of rail road were built by 1860. With the rail road, the cost of land transportation and the cost at which domestic goods could be sold was greatly reduced.
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153
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For a long time, there had been a push to create a transcontinental rail road. There were lots or rail raod tracks throughout the U.S., but they were all meant to serve regional purposes.
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154
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Theodore Judah pushed forward the Pacific Railway Act (1862), a congressional act funding the creation of a transcontinental railroad. Judah wanted to connect the east coast and the west coast to save millions of immigrants from the tempting vices of American cities. He viewed the trans-continental railway as a device which could save the starving, the ignorant, and the oppressed. He also saw the TC railway as a device which could spread out the population of the United States. For Theodore Judah, the building of the trans-continental railway was a moral calling.
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155
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Most observers felt it would be impossible to build a trans-continental rail way due to the sheer size of the rocky mountains. To safely cross the Rockies, a train would have to go over 7,000 feet high within 20 miles.
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156
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Initially, funding for the trans-continental railway was not feasible. Eventually, Judah helped congress pass the The Pacific Railway Act of 1862. Judah was the author of the PRA, in which two companies would be contracted to build the rail road--the Central Pacific and The Union Pacific.
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157
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The Union Pacific could lay 1 mile of track a day across the flat land of the east. The Central Pacific, however, was hampered by the rocky terrain of the west and the need to pay workers high wages. Because of the high wages, Central Pacific could not afford to hire the same number of workers as Union Pacific. Therefore, the pace of Central Pacific, initially, was slower than that of Union Pacific.
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158
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Rail road construction did not always take place in empty, desolate lands. Indians were angered by the intrusion of Americans into their territories and resisted the construction of the rail road. Rail roads were also not egalitarian--they relied on a hierarchical work force to build them. There were lots of Irish workers in the East and lots of Chinese workers in the west.
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159
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At this time in California, the Chinese had to pay 2 million dollars a year in discriminatory taxes, could not vote, could not enroll their children in public schools, and had no access to the court system. The Central Pacific turned to Chinese workers when it looked for labor to build the trans-continental railway.
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160
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Louisa Lawson was the mother of author Henry Lawson. She married a Scandinavian man and lived under rough conditions--her husband was away from the house for long periods of time when working in gold mines. She had 4 children with this man.
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161
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Eventually, Lawson picked up her four children, left the outback, and moved to Sydney. She left her husband behind. In Sydney, she founded a publication called "The Dawn" (1888-1905), an all-women's publication that became the first all-women publication in Australia. Louisa Lawson was very committed to women's rights, domestic abuse, temperance, and economic equality for women. Lawson also supported the Anti-Saloon League that aimed to shut down pubs and prevent men from drinking too much.
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162
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Louisa Lawson is also a leading advocate for women's suffrage. In 1902, New South Wales, the territory that includes Sydney, gave women the right to vote. While Louisa Lawson was in favor of women's suffrage, she was not in favor of universal suffrage--she had no interest in seeing Aborigines gain the right to vote. She either did not care about Aborigines having the right to vote, thought including such a proposal would damage her efforts to give women the right to vote, or thought (as many Australians did) that the Aborigines would eventually vanish. Aborigines did not get the right to vote until 1967. Australia has compulsory voting--everyone of voting age must vote or face a stiff fine from the government.
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163
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Henry Lawson probably based "The Drover's Wife" on the harsh, unromantic life he witnessed in the bush. Henry Lawson was fascinated by the ways that life in the bush affected the entire family, not just the stereotypical way it affected the man in the family.
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164
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Louisa Lawson, in her essay "The Australia Bush-Woman," makes a distinction between those who live in bush, those who live in the country, and those who live in the city. She is most interested in those who live in the bush.
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165
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To Louisa Lawson, the bush-woman is thin, wiry, flat-chested, and sun burned. There is lots of talk in Australia about the coloration of white skin by the scorching Australian sun. People can't grow vegetables in the bush because the soil won't support them. A cabbage to the bush-woman would be like orchids to the city-woman, a rare and pleasurable delicacy.
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166
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The bush-woman is thin, has good health, leathery skin, and is aged far beyond her years. She could be 35, but look as though she is 55. The bush-woman is used to giving up comforts for herself because she wants her children to survive. The city-woman is not used to giving up comforts. This is rural living at its harshest.
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167
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While the bush-men have the option of leaving the bush to work and see other people and places, the bush-women are isolated and don't have the option of leaving their children to see other people and places.
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168
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"He who lives in the bush and thinks goes mad." Lawson says this because life in the bush is all about survival--if you think, you will become depressed or melancholy and unable to improve your life.
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169
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The worst part of being an isolated farmer's wife is the very real possibility that her husband will physically abuse her. If she is abused, who is going to help her? She is too far away from the police for them to help her--no other people to support her either. Courage and self-reliance are absolutely necessary to survive in such a situation.
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170
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While Louisa Lawson admires the bush-women for carrying on, she, at the end of the story, states that the bush-women are most important to the women's movement due to the contribution they make to it through their daughters. The essay ends with a ringing, optimistic tone suggesting that the daughters of bush-women will embrace women's rights and use the fortitude and resilience of their mothers to aid them in their quest to do so. Louisa Lawson published this essay in a women's magazine, and probably did so more to give hope to her readers than to, on the last part about women's rights, make a factually based point. After all, where are the daughters of bush-women going to be schooled? What doctor, lawyer, or white-collar husband are they going to marry? How are they going to leave the bush?
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171
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Lots of Australian writers focused on whites living on the land. Any mention of Aborigines in these works was either derogatory or of little importance to the work.
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172
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Henry Lawson became notable for his relationship with Banjo Patterson. However, Henry Lawson's drinking problems and his time in prison for his public drunkenness, debts, and failure to pay alimony also gained him notoriety.
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173
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In 1896, Henry Lawson published "When the Billy Boils," his most famous collection of stories. Henry Lawson died in 1922, two years after his mother Louisa Lawson died. Henry Lawson was the first Australian writer to be honored with a state funeral. Australian currency has Lawson's picture on a particular dollar bill.
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174
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"The Drover's Wife," published by Henry Lawson in 1892, is the most famous piece of Australian literature ever written. The story begins by talking about how nothing is ever healthy in the bush--rotten apple trees, creeks that are almost dry, and barren descriptions of landscapes. The bush is basically described as miles upon miles of flat land.
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175
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In "The Drover's Wife," the drover is away driving cattle--leaving his wife to raise four children by herself in one of the most inhospitable places on the planet. The landscape they live in is so dry that even the children are described as being dry.
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176
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Henry Lawson's description of the "the gaunt, sun-browned bushwoman" is striking similar to Louisa Lawson's description of the physically worn out and burned bush-woman. The family dog is named Alligator, and the nearest school, referred to as a "shanty," is 19 miles away.
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177
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There is no church for the family, but the mother does dress up her children in their best clothes on Sunday and take them out for a walk in the Outback. They look at a pond and then come back. The woman's husband is gone for 18 months at a time---18 months for a woman living alone with four children. That is enough to wear out anyone. The children swear, and the mother thinks it is funny.
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178
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When Henry Lawson refers to how "the drought of 18-- ruined him," he deliberately refuses to give a date. There was a tremendous drought in the 1890s, though, that devastated the country's agricultural industry. Because of the drought, the Drover was forced to become a swagman. The quote mentioned above appears in every version of "The Drover's Wife."
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179
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The Drover's Wife only connection to the outside world comes through a publication known as "Young Ladies Journal." Australia was not a literate culture--there weren't enough people interested in buying books. When the story says--"Her husband is an Australian, and so is she," Henry Lawson is making a nationalistic Australian announcement. Lawson knew that most of his readers were British--he didn't want them thinking that the couple in his story was British.
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180
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Henry Lawson describes the Australian male as a generally careless individual. "He may forget sometimes that he is married." The Australian male might be unfaithful every once in awhile. Though the drover is unfaithful, the wife in Lawson's story is more concerned about the check the drover will bring home--he usually gives most of it to her.
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181
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The Drover's Wife is not like Louisa Lawson--a woman who will pack up and leave if her husband is unfaithful. Henry Lawson's version of the Drover's wife features a wife who has never thought about leaving. Even if she did, she wouldn't know where to go or what she'd do.
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182
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"Gin" is derogatory slang for an Aborigine woman. It is a form of racial coding--"The whitest gin in all the land." The more white the gin, the more respect whites have for the particular Aborigine woman. Another derogatory reference towards Aborigines comes when the wife refers to an Aborigine man as "King Timmy"--she is making fun of the Aborigine by calling him a king--like a slave name of sorts. "Black Mary" is also used to refer to an Aborigine woman (The whitest gin in all the land), which represents another slave name.
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183
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Henry Lawson is primarily interested in the snake which enters the house--this is why he glosses over the death of one of the Drover's wife's children. The main narrative comes from the wife's encounter with the snake and her desire to defend her children from its poison.
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184
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Throughout the course of the novel, the Drover's wife deals with fires, floods, pests, mad bullocks, snakes, crowes, Eagles, and locusts. All of these things threaten her lifestyle.
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185
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Delirium Tremors is a an acute form of alcoholism involving dementia. Someone with Delirium Tremors experiences an extremely strong urge to drink and, if unable to drink, might literally go crazy because of it. The Australians refer to a person experiencing Delirium Tremors as a "Bushmen in the Horrors."
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186
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A "sundowner" is a swagman who shows up to an isolated bush house and asks for supper. A sundowner, however, waits until sundown to make his approach--if he were to show up in the afternoon, he would have to work for his meal.
A "Gallows-faced Swagman" is a swagman who looks like he needs to be hung. |
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187
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In the song "Waltzing Matilda," a matilda is a sleeping bag.
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188
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At one point in the story, the Drover's wife praises the Aborigine (whom she hired to cut wood) for not being lazy. This shows another stereotype the wife has towards Aborigines--she thinks they are all lazy.
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189
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If the snake in the house were to bite either the children or the dog, the bite would be fatal--they are too far away to receive immediate medical attention.
At the end of the story, when Tommy sees his mother crying, he tries to comfort her by telling her that he will never become a drover--"Blast me if I do." |
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190
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There are many versions of the Drover's wife today, but they all included at least three thngs: A wife, an absent drover, and a barren, inhospitable landscape.
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191
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In Henry Lawson's "Water Them Geraniums," Mary is terrified of becoming a drover's wife. Mary sees the deranged Mrs. Spicer, a drover's wife, and fears that she will become just like Mrs. Spicer if her husband becomes a drover and leaves her in the outback for long periods of time.
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192
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"Mrs. Spicer looks very little different from what she did when I first saw her alive." According to this sentence, Mrs. Spicer never had much of a life.
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193
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Mary worried about living out in the bush. She wants her husband to work in a city so they live in a city, yet they can't go to Sydney because there are too many pubs. The weakness of her husband (Joe) is part of the reason he has dragged her to the outback. They will have to live in the outback for the foreseeable future.
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194
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Mary says she cant' stand life in the outback and says "it will kill me." The outback, as she thinks, will either kill her or warp her like it has done to other Australian women in the outback. The small city they left to go further into the outback was a crude mining town with a big drinking problem.
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195
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Mrs. Spicer, as the story states, had neither the brains nor the memory to leave the outback after being abandoned so many months by her husband. Attachment, love, romantic feelings, and conversation are all burned away by the bush. The silence of the bush works its way into Mary and Joe's relationship.
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196
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The Spicer boy is done with education at age 15--he goes off to become a drover. None of the women in "Water Them Geraniums," match the optimism Louisa Lawson had for the future of women in the outback.
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197
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Henry Lawson's "Telling Mrs Baker," is different structurally and thematically from other Drover's Wife stories. This story is not about the Drover's Wife as much as it is the person to whom the story is told. (no period after "Mrs" in "Mrs Baker)
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198
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The narrator in Lawson's "Telling Mrs Baker," is a drover. Bob Baker, Mrs Baker's husband, is a man's man. He He goes droving while his wife stays behind in a comfortable little town. Baker drinks a lot and chases women. The women he chases are often hired by pimps to steal money from careless male customers. The women take a cut of everything they steal.
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199
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The men who are with Bob Baker try unsuccessfully to save Bob Baker from himself. He starts raving, loses his mind, and eventually dies.
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200
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A notable sentence in "Telling Mrs Baker" starts "In a period of severe drought..." Every Drover's Wife story has a sentence like this one.
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201
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Bob Baker is a boss-drover who likes to go into wayside shanty-towns that feature bad booze and women of dubious character. Despite his corrupt ways, the drovers under him stand by him. "It isn't bush religion to desert a mate in a hole." Their code of mateship is a very big deal. His friends can't leave him, they would be dishonored if they did so.
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202
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Drover's wife stories are always presented as cases in which a landowner is expected to lose his/her fight with the outback. Bob's brother, Ned, is presented this way. "Ned, who was fighting the drought, the rabbit pest, and the banks, on a small station back on the border."
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203
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Lawson does not present the Drover as a man to be admired. He has the horrors, is incredibly immoral, and dies in the most agonizing of ways.
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204
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The phrase "such is life" is a major phrase in Australian culture. Ned Kelly, a famous Australian outlaw from the late 1870s, said "such is life" before he was hung.
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205
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Each of the Drover's Wife stories we have read have been very effective and have shown the power of the stories. The Drover's Wife and Water Them Geraniums are more linked than other stories.
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206
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Edward Dyson, the man who wrote "The Conquering Bush," is not considered to be a major writer. "The Conquering Bush" was written in 1897.
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207
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In Dyson's "The Conquering Bush," Ned is presented as a slow, still man who is easily moved by drink. Drinking allows him to work off steam. All Drovers seemed to be like him.
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208
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Lots of Drover's wives live in cities. The Drover comes to the city to spend money and enjoy the comforts of life. Girls fall for these overly masculine men.
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209
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The woman in the story marries Ned when she is 20 years old and goes out to the bush with her new husband--she has absolutely no idea how hard life in the bush will be.
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210
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Ned's wife changes due to the outback--her cheeks become thinner, she becomes more quiet, more melancholy, and she also seems taller due to all the weight she has lost. She is depressed by the isolation and climate of her new surroundings.
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211
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Ned is nice to her, but he has grown up in the outback his whole life, and has a hard taciturnity to him that makes him hard to relate to. He and his wife stop talking because there is nothing to talk about.
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212
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Ned's wife talks about the noise of the bush and how she thinks the birds are crazy for all the noise they make. She thinks everything in the bush is mad--she projects her own fears onto the outback. Ned recognizes his wife's distress and begins talking to her more often in an attempt to soothe her. Eventually, however, the wife kills herself and the child.
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213
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"The Chosen Vessel" is written by Barbara Baynton. Baynton is an important female author. In "The Chosen Vessel," a woman has to take care of a baby while her drover-husband leaves her all alone.
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214
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In "The Chosen Vessel," Baynton is notable for taking the figure of the swagman, and not portraying in the jolly way that "Waltzing Matilda" does. In Baynton's story, the swagman is a sinister stalker/murderer.
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215
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In "The Chosen Vessel," the lamb the horseman finds is an allegorical image for the baby. When the mother runs from the swagman with her baby in her arms, a Catholic man sees her, but thinks it is an apparition. He thought it was literally the virgin Mary carrying baby Jesus.
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216
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Both "The Conquering Bush" and "The Chosen Vessel," feature newly wed women who are uncomfortable in the bush settings. They are also both uncomfortable with their drover husbands. In "The Chosen Vessel," the drover is verbally abusive towards his wife and makes her feel small and stupid. In "The Conquering Bush," the drover is too out of touch and accustomed to the outback to see that his wife can't survive in such a place.
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217
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Katherine Mansfield is an Australian author. She left New Zealand to move to England, a place where she became a notable writer of short stories.
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218
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In Katherine Mansfield's "The Woman at the Store," 3 drovers go to a store because they know a woman works there. One drover is named Jim, the second is named Joe, and the third drover's name is never mentioned. The third drover is the narrator--a woman drover. We know the third drover is female because the store owners daughter draws a picture of her when she is bathing.
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219
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The woman at the store claims to be a drover's wife, has several teeth missing, has ugly hair, and is very lonely.
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220
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"Maoris" is the plural form of a derogatory word for Aborigine. " When Jim and the store owner are said to be "kissing feet" under the table, it means that they were playing footsy.
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221
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Later, the female drover speaks of how "we got slowly drunk." It was very unusual for a woman to speak about getting drunk--especially in 1911.
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222
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The store woman had 4 miscarriages. She blames her negligent husband for the miscarriages, but doesn't recognize the fact that she needs to stop having children. She calls her husband a child murderer.
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223
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As the story ends, the store-owners daughter shows Jo and the narrator a picture she has drawn of an adult female killing an adult male, and then burying the adult male. Jo and the narrator immediately recognize that the female is the girl's mother and the male is the girl's father. They quickly leave after seeing this picture. Jim, in an ironically humorous twist, however, decides to stay with the woman for a longer period of time. He had not seen the picture, and, because the woman hates to be left alone, may end up like the store owner's former husband.
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224
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The oil painting, "The Drover's Wife," was painted by Russel Drysdale in 1945.
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225
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Murray Bail's "The Drover's Wife" tells the story of how the woman in the painting conveniently hid the hand which displayed her wedding ring. He says she is holding a shopping bag, not a suitcase. The Drover's Wife's name is Hazel--after the author's wife. She has a helpless and resigned facial expression--as if it were the author's fault.
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226
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When Bell writes "Our last argument," it implies that there were other arguements. Their last argument concerned his wife's weight. He had her figures--he knew, to the ounce, how much she weighed. He even talks about her not being tall and having short legs.
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227
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Murray Bail, "The Drover's Wife" cont.: in a story by Robert Downy, he talks of his wife in ways that expose her faults--yet, in throughout the course of his discussion of her 'faults,' we discover that she is really an angel while he is really a monster.
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228
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The narrator in Bail's "The Drover's Wife," states that his wife had a pretty face, but that it did not last long in the difficult drought conditions of the outback.
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229
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He says he and his wife lived in Adelaide and that he was left alone to raise his son (Trevor) and daughter (Kate). The man says you cannot tell where the painting was made because there are no distinctive features of the outback--Ayer's Rock not included. If he knew where she was, he might try to find her. He said you can tell time by the length of the shadow--5pm.
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230
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The narrator says his wife Hazel looks unhappy because she is standing away from the horseman behind her. He believes that her distance from him shows her lack of trust--he thinks they've had an argument, like the ones he used to have with his wife. Arguments characterized the relationship he had with his wife.
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231
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The narrator in Bail's "The Drover's Wife" hopes his wife has not run off with an Aborigine. He could recover if she ran off with a white man, but not a black man--his pride would be too hurt. He also demeans the man in the wagon--saying he is short. He wants the man to be short so he can feel physically superior to him.
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232
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The narrator says, "I had an argument with your Kate," to the picture. he says the kids sometimes visit him. The keyword here is "sometimes." He is not a very likable person.
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233
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The man has an opinion of his wife that is, overall, very low. He calls her "stupid" and compares her to a schoolgirl. Despite his low opinion of her, she actually proves to be quite physically capable. She kills a black snake and burns it--just like Lawson's story.
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234
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When the man greets his wife, he says "Hello Missus," to show affection. He says that every time he would do so, his wife would appear touched by his special gesture. Yet, due to his inability to properly interpret his surroundings, his wife's reaction may have been one of regret. She regrets having married so disgusting a person.
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235
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After the man's wife left, he could not stop his hands from shaking. Has he been boozing up? He can't be a dentist and have shaking hands.
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236
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In the story, the man talks of how his wife "squatted down, I can still see her expression, silly girl." To squat down is to sit in a very unfeminine way.
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237
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The study of Australian culture is a big deal. At least 26 world universities offer courses on Australian literature. Additionally, a major conference on Australian literature takes place every year. |
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238
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Franco Casamaggiore is a European historian who is very interested in "The Drover's Wife." In his essay "The Drover's Wife," he examines different versions of "The Drover's Wife." Europeans are very interested in English colonial literature.
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239
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Australian Drovers often copulated with sheep, a practice known as bestiality.
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240
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Cassamaggiore gets his facts wrong about women not being in Australia from an early date.
Academic papers are usually detached and objective--yet, Casamaggiore comes out and says "You are wrong, Giovanni." |
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250
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The Holden is the Australian answer to the American Ford. Most Australians wanted a house, decent wages, and an automobile--the same things Americans wanted.
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251
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In Barbara Jeffris' "The Drover's Wife," the wife is 46 years old. Henry Lawson's "The Drover's Wife" was published in 1892, while Jeffris' version was published in 1980.
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252
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Jeffris tries to set all Drover's wife stories right--she discusses Lawson first. She says that Lawson was a good listener.
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253
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In Jeffris' story, the wife says she spent month talking to flies on the wall. She praises an Aborigine woman who helped deliver her baby, yet, has to bury the baby at a later time. Jeffris tries to show what really happens to women in the outback.
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254
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Women had to work all day. They had to prepare meals everyday, and do work that was extremely repetitive. Despite all of their effort and hardwork, their work (prepared food) disappears at the end of the day. While a man could work hard for a long time at builiding a shed, once the shed is finished, it is not going to disappear for a long time. He can look at the shed and feel proud of what he has accomplished. Women, however, usually didn't get the same opportunity.
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255
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Many people would use old newspapers as insulation for houses. There were lots of holes in the shoddily constructed homes of the outback. Boards used to construct the houses were not cut as precisely as they are today, resulting in them not fitting together as well as they could have.
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256
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The Bushman's Bible referred to a Sydney newspaper that everyone wrote to and published poetry and other things in.
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257
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Jeffris said that Lawson's idea of a woman was one that you could lie to and have her believe you.
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258
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Jeffris alludes to "Goblin Market," in her essay. "Goblin Market" is a disguised sex poem from the Victorian era.
When Jeffris mentions Banjo, she means Banjo Patterson. |
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259
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Iron Bark is a minor Bush poet.
"George Street" is a street in the heart of Sydney. |
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260
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Jeffris also retells the Murray Bail version of "The Drover's Wife." In it, she reinterprets Russel Drysdale's painting.
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261
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Jeffris says the woman in the painting had an ex-husband who was a dentist. She also states that if most of his patients on a given day were women, then he would want to have sex as soon as he got home. She also mentions that, on these days, he would come home with spit in the corner of his mouth. The husband is thus portrayed as a perverted person.
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262
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She also says that her former husband, not Drysdale, painted the picture of her. She says he deliberately chose to paint her in the midst of an ugly background because "he knew how the ground reaches up into you."
Throughout the story, the woman never names herself. |
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263
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Anne Gambling's "The Drover's De Facto," is about a woman romantically connected, but not married to, a man. The story opens with a reference to her standing by a wooden stove in the outback. The man she is going out with is a truckie who carries cattle to the market. The two met at a singles bar where "you could choose your meat." The woman was tired of city boys who she considered weak. She wanted a strong country boy.
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264
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Anne Gambling, "The Drover's De Facto."
On the night they met, they went to a classy hotel in a big mac truck. Going in a bic mac truck should have been the woman's first big warning sign of what was to come. |
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265
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The woman is 25 and has a college degree. Because specific emphasis is given to her college education, the woman is portrayed as someone with a strong reasoning ability.
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266
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Just because you sleep with someone in a honeymoon sweet does not mean that you are married.
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267
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De facto means "in effect." She is shacking up with him, but is not married to him.
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268
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Later in the story, we learn that the man had previously married a girl out of high school after she became pregnant. Later, his wife leaves him and takes his children with her--she never said goodbye, and he has never seen them since.
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269
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In Anne Gambling's "The Drover's De Facto," the lines "Patterson and Lawson combined to urge her towards a life for which she was uneducated and unprepared," shows how her education did not serve her well. Lawson and Patterson, to her, presented glamorous images of the outback that were in no way similar to the real thing.
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270
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If Gambling's "The Drover's De Facto," were feminist, the woman would have left after the first night, or month at the latest, because there are lots of indicators that she should leave him. He does not acknowledge the hard work she puts in to prepare his meals, he leaves her for long periods of time and does not tell her when he'll back, he demands sex whenever he comes back--regardless of the time of day, she receives no pleasure from sex with him--nor does he care if she does, etc.
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271
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The sex she has with him is done only on his terms, and he is very piggish with his grunts and groans. After sex, he will almost always demand that she prepare a meal for him. Once the meal is finished, however, he falls asleep and becomes too tired to eat it. They have a parasitic relationship in which he is the parasite and she is the host.
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272
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The line "[the] ones at Lu-Lu's are nice and clean," refers to the prostitutes at a whorehouse being free of sexually transmitted diseases. Prostitution is legal in Australia.
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273
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The Drover's wife left him for an "oilie," a man who works in the oil industry. When his girlfriend flirts with some oilies, he flies into a jealous rage and beats her.After beating her, he falls to the ground and starts sobbing--saying that he is sorry and that he was just afraid she would leave him. Despite this, however, she decides to leave him. She knows that if he was willing to beat her once, he will be willing to beat her again.
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274
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Gambling's story is a completely free-standing story that relates to the other Drover's Wife stories in the most general of ways. "The Drover's De Facto," though, clearly plays off "The Drover's Wife," title, though.
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275
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The woman in Gambling's story's has read Patterson and Lawson, but probably not too many other bush-writers.
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276
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Damien Broderick is a science-fiction writer who wrote "The Drover's Wife's Dog." In "The Drover's Wife's Dog," Broderick makes allusions to Lawson, Murray, Bail, Drysdale, Moorhouse, and feminist readers.
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277
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Broderick's "The Drover's Wife's Dog," starts out with "Call me Alligator," a direct allusion to Melville's Moby Dick. Moby Dick starts out with "Call me Ishmael."
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278
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The dog refers to the drover as an old-sheep.
In paragraph 6, the line "the dog was also guilty" is a line added to Barbara Baynton's "The Chosen Vessel." |
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279
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The last sentence of the last paragraph, paragraph 7, says "and she hugs and kisses him while the sickly daylight." This seems to be an allusion to the end of Lawson's story, in which a crying mother embraces her son as the sun rises to usher in a new day.
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280
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Mandy Sayer wrote her version of "The Drover's Wife" in 1996. In Sayer's story, the wife's husband is a dentist who uses dentistry to fulfill his perverse desires. Sayer says you can tell that a dentist painted the picture of her because her right hand looks like a gigantic molar.
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281
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In Sayer's "The Drover's Wife," the man she met in the outback was not a drover but a snake-charmer for the circus.
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282
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Sayer makes reference to the "baby and the dingo." In 1980, a woman, her husband, and her children decided to camp out near Ayer's Rock. One of the children was only a few months old. That night, the family decided to leave the infant in a tent while they went on a walk. When they returned to the tent, the baby was missing. The baby had been removed.
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283
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The story of the baby and the dingo ripped apart Australian society for several years. Some believed that a dingo had stolen the woman's baby while others felt that she had murdered the baby.
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284
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The woman, Lindy Chamberlain, was tried and found guilty--yet, later evidence showed that she had told the truth. Part of the reason that people did not believe the parents came from Australia's dislike of 7th Day Adventists, a religion that the parents adhered to. Another reason Australians did not trust them is due to the fact that the parents did not, in the minds of most people, act as most parents who had just lost a precious child would have. They did not display much emotion. The baby also had a weird name--Hazariah--causing some people to believe the parents had killed the baby to fulfill some kind of religious duty.
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285
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A movie, starring Meryl Streep, was made about the Dingo incident. I think it was called "Agony in the Dark."
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286
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David Ireland wrote his version of "The Drover's Wife," in 1997. He claims the woman in Drysdale's painting is his mother, and that her name is Dorrie, not Hazel. The interpretation of the painting depends on the subjectivity of the person looking at it.
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287
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In Ireland's interpretation of the portrait, the woman is about to leave. Her husband is lazy drunk whose "favorite speed is stop."
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288
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A "beer biff" is a fight that results from drinking too much beer. His mom, Dorrie, called his dad's new friend "Treach," because she felt there was something sticky about him. Later, his dad gets wildly drunk and is caught fornicating with Treach. The narrator makes the story a comedy about gay men having a "volcanic orgasm" in the outback. They may have been in the "astronaut" pose when Dorrie caught them. Dorrie is so disgusted and mad that she drives them away from the camp with a whip.
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289
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According to Ireland, the narrator's uncle is the one who painted "The Drover's Wife." The uncle did so as a joke. He says that his Uncle, Old Russ, "liked desolate landscapes."
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290
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Ian Wilkinson's "The Driver's Wife," is a re-writing of Lawson. It follows the outline of the Drover series, but updates it. The Drover is now a trucker. Also, the man is not faithful to his wife.
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291
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In "The Driver's Wife," Wilkinson takes elements of the Drover series, like the landscapes, the settings, the names of children, the snake, the dog, and uses these elements to tell the story in a modern way.
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292
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In Ireland's "The Driver's Wife," the wife is quite isolated. The dog is named Ally, like the dog named "Alligator" from Lawson's story.
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293
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The truckie tells his wife "it's only 30.4 km to the centre of the city," showing that the truckie knows lots about his profession. It also shows how far out into the bush the woman and her children really are.
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294
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The oldest son is named Tommy, Jack is her second son. When Jack is bitten by a snake, the wife calls her husband to tell her they will be at the hospital. Yet, when she calls, her husband's mistress answers the phone.
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295
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At the end of the story, Tom says, "I'll never get a truck mom. I don't want to go to Queensland." This is very similar to what Tom says in Henry Lawson's story--"Mother I won't never go drovin', blast me if I do!"
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296
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In Mandy Sayer's "The Drover's Wife," the snake becomes an erotic figure. It is used to sexually stimulate her as it slithers across her body.
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288
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Miles Franklin published "My Great Career," in 1901. Franklin had a long, complicated life. She was born in Australia, moved to America, left America at the start of WWI to go to England, and then moved back to Australia. Franklin went to Australia to focus on making films.
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289
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The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an award given to top writers in Australia. In Australia, winning the Miles Franklin is equivalent to winning the Pullitzer in America.
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290
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Franklin's "My Great Career," is a female version of "The Drover's Wife." Miles grew up in the Bush talking about her own life and story. She is, according to her mother, "godless", rebellious, "plain", and "useless." This is a version of the Ugly Duckling story.
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291
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Sybylla, the girl, does not conform to the standard ideal for beauty. Yet, she gets a miracle intervention. When living with her grandmother, a wealthy landowner begins to fall in love with her. Despite this intervention, her family falls into debt and is forced to sell her as a servant to a drover's family. With the drover's family, she is forced to act as a teacher for unruly children.
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292
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An Englishman is the first one to court Sybylla when she is living with her grandmother. He is imprudent and foolish. He tells her, "Although you're ugly, I'll marry you anyway."
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293
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Sybylla's mother is from a higher class of people than her father. Her mother married down. Because her mother's family had more money, Sybylla had a chance to live with her grandmother and make a better life for herself.
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294
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Australian Culture said that a young woman should always get married. Yet, at the end of the movie, when the wealthy, handsome, and charming landowner asks Sybylla to marry him, she turns him down. The landowner respects her for who she is and would not have made her a drover's wife. Despite his honest intentions, Sybylla wants to be independent of marriage so she will be free to live her own life.
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295
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Miles Franklin is not the author's real name. The author used the pseudonym Miles Franklin in an attempt to hide the fact that she was she was a 21 year old woman. Female authors weren't very common at this time.
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296
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Henry Lawson was very impressed by images Franklin created of Australian landscapes. He was very moved by her work.
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