Henry Lawson

Through the studies of Henry Lawson’s short stories, we can clearly see that his unique narrative style helps engage readers and describe his experiences of hardship in the Australian Outback. Today i will be talking about a short story, ‘The Loaded Dog’, By Henry Lawson, and ‘The Man from Snowy River’ By Banjo Paterson.
Henry Lawson’s narrative style is reflective of his childhood spent growing up in the rough country side of Australia. The way Lawson makes the audience feel his experiences can be seen through his story telling style. He narrates the stories as if he absolutely hates the bush.
Lawson is always actively seeking to convey his distaste for the outback by clumping individual people, towns, conversations, events and experiences together. Lawson even manages to create an image of the outback as tedious, rough, and unpleasant from the very first line. For example, the first line from ‘The Loaded Dog’, ‘Dave, Jim and Andy were sinking a shaft at Stony Creek in search of gold’.
Henry Lawson seeks to compare and contrast the varying types of characters who live in the Australian Outback. Lawson puts all these characters into the same sketch in order to create an image that is distinctly sensitive of the bush. This gives the readers an idea of the different personalities in the outback, such as the bushman or miner.
The ‘Loaded Dog’ is a classic story of the troubles boys can create. Dave, Andy and his mate Jim plan to blow up all the fish in the creek. The description of Andy’s cartridge highlights Dave’s plan and ingenuity. The detail of the cartridge creates a sense of suspense for the reader which carries throughout the remainder of the story.
The amount of description of Tommy’s pursuit of the men with the live cartridge in his mouth, brings another level of suspense to the story with the addition of humour. The description of Tommy as a gentle, loyal and fun dog helps to increase the responder’s level of anxiety as they want Tommy to survive. Also used, are short paced sentences when ‘the chase’ is happening, as this emphasizes the suspense in the story. The story continues its humour right to the end while telling the readers that the story has become a bush legend in the acknowledgement of Dave.
We see similar narrative style, from the poem, ‘The Man from Snowy River’, by Banjo Paterson. The poem similarly, has a build-up of suspense, the describing of the Australian outback, and an end result of a bush legend being created.
The rhyme and rhythm are balladic and the language is simple and easy to understand. The story is told through description, dialogue and action, and it is about a single episode of a memorable act, in this case in the Australian bush. The action lines give a clear sense of movement, and the short, repetitive structure of the poem helps emphasize the build-up of suspense as the story progresses.
Paterson, like most of the Australian population, was mainly an urban dweller. His poems were mainly known for his romanticising of the Australian bush, as opposed to Henry Lawson showing his hate towards the rugged outback. Paterson uses vivid and effective language to describe the Australian outback.
The bushmen language used in the poem helps to convey the strong Australian culture behind the poem and the vivid descriptions, such as “cliffs and crags that beetled overhead”, give great imagery of the surroundings; as do the many similes and metaphors such as “And he raced him down the mountain like a torrent down its bed”.
The whole poem is set to a fast, regular rhythm in which you can hear the wild horses galloping due to the stressed, hard consonants and continual beat. It also uses strong alliteration and onomatopoeia, such as “Snowy River riders on the mountains make their home” and “resounded to the thunder of the tread”. These features, along with the rhyming pattern of ABAB CDCD structure, produce a great musical poem.
In Conclusion, we can see that both Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson shape our understanding of the Australian outback through their distinct narrative structure and style and the use of different language techniques.