The Representation Of Women: In A Mans World, Not Fair
The Representation Of Women; In A Mans World; Not Fair.
The history of Australian literature is extremely masculine. Written by men, about men, for men, a most ‘typically Australian outlook.’ In fact Norman Mackenzie goes as far to say that ‘Australia is more “a man’s country” than other industrial democracies’ (Wilde 271). However, women are represented within this masculine dominated literature, (Wilde 271). Nevertheless, this was a masculine world, with very few women with differing roles in society, to be represented in literature. Therefore, the ratio of men to women in early Australian literature is responding to this ratio.
The female protagonists in The Female Transport, written by an anonymous author, The Drovers Wife by Hennery Lawson, and Journal by Annie Baxter, are three different representations of women in early Australian literature, in three different genera. Each representation is different, yet they are all clear representation of womanhood in early Australia. So are …show more content…
these representations fair or still very bias? There are, the convict, the wife and the mother.
The Convict; The Female Transport
This convict ballad, The Female Transport, by an anonymous author, is written in direct speech, from the female protagonists, ‘Sarah Collins’ (Anonymous, The Female Transport), with a rhythmic pattern of AABB. This woman is a stereotypical convict. Convicted to be ‘transported for fourteen years or more/and go from hence across the seas unto Van Diemen’s shores.’ (Anonymous, The Female Transport) However, you are meant to feel sorry for this girl, who ‘every night when I lay down I wet my straw with tears, (Anonymous, The Female Transport). This girl who was brought up by her father so ‘tenderly’ did an unknown crime and was punished (Anonymous, The Female Transport). This ballad is meant to serve as a warning to others. (Trigger and Griffiths 86)
Sarah was represented as a woman who was tainted by bad company and was now paying the price. Women convicts were transported to ‘Van Diemen’s Land from the time of the initial establishment of the colony in 1803 until 1853. During that time, 5 female factories were established in Van Diemen’s Land’ (Crowley). This representation of female convicts in this ballad was very stereotypical of the first female influx in the white colonies of Australia. Sarah’s hardship is also stereotypical, as she describes as being chained, ‘two by two,’ whipped, starved, worked to the bone under the Australian ‘burning sun’ and expresses such misery that she thinks of dying in her sleep. (Anonymous, The Female Transport) this sort of treatment was no usual for female convicts as Crowley explains that ‘These factories housed only female convicts and were designed as places of labor … as well as places of punishment’. (Crowley)
The Mother; The Drovers Wife by Hennery Lawson, In a masculine world, it is not surprising that a man; Henry Lawson, represented a woman in his short story The Drovers Wife.
This short story represents the conflicts of an Australian woman; who is married to a drover, a job that requires him to be absent from his family for months on end. Via Lawson is not giving this woman a name, only known as the male’s wife, and a mother to her children, with no name for herself, created a character that is stereotypical for any Drovers wife.
Lawson represents this woman as a mother with a ‘gaunt, sun-browned bushwoman,’ with a ‘worn-out breast,’ (Lawson). This woman is obviously an educated woman, who reads the Young Ladies' Journal. (Lawson) Lawson goes on to suggest that this woman is the man of the house, who does everything around the house, she as well as doing everything that a husband would normally do. She would fight bushfires, ‘a mad bullock’ handle a gun and ward of
snakes.
She is described as a loving mother, but one who does not have the time to show this affection, but yet we feel a strong empathy and sympathy for this woman, who he describes ‘She is not a coward, but recent events have shaken her nerves. A little son of her brother-in-law was lately bitten by a snake, and died. Besides, she has not heard from her husband for six months, and is anxious about him’ (Lawson) She also identifies as an Australian: ‘Her husband is an Australian, and so is she’ (Lawson).
With little action, this represents the lack of action in life for the female protagonist ‘all days are much the same to her.’ (Lawson) the lives of people in the Outback are moulded by the environment so that they, too, become hardened, desiccated, silent, and of necessity even predatory. These are the actions of a woman born in Australia and accustomed to the Australian way.
Lawson’s protagonist is a sad figure who understands that people depend on her for their survival and that she has no choice but to continue to battle the elements and cope with the unremitting bleakness of her existence. She is brave and resourceful, but worn down and emotionally exhausted. One wouldn’t wish her existence on anybody.
According to Carrera-Suarez, Lawson has created ‘the archetype of the pioneer bush-woman, a heroic mother left on her own by the drover husband, resigned to her fate, battling against the elements and winning’ (Carrera-Suarez 140).
The Wife, Journals by Annie Baxter
The next stereotype is that of the wife. A woman who accompanied her husband to the new land, who had to deal with the hardships that came with this harsh land. One real life author was that of Annie Baxter (1816-1905). This woman was the author of the first known major autobiographic work, writing over ‘thirty-six volumes of autobiography to sustain herself as a human being’ (Spender 82). These journals and letters from a distinct literary genre and offer a very unique insight into the lives of these women, which is absent from a lot of early colonial literature.
‘my journal: I always come to you to enumerate my grievances. No one shears the secrets of my heart as you do- and why? Because your pages, like my little troubles, will never be seen!’ (Annie Baxter, 1984 36)
‘Married at seventeen’ Annie accompanied her husband a Lieutenant to Van Diemen’s Land, where she started her journal in 1834, (Spender 82). In her journals on January 1840, Baxter describes her new living conditions as ‘approaching barbarism,’ (Baxter) with the ‘absence of food, shelter and friends- and the presence of danger and drudgery.’ (Spender 84). Baxter goes on to describe their survival methods as they were ‘determined not to get into debt’ and so they ‘commenced feeding themselves on corn-meal’ due to the high price foodstuffs like that of flour and rice. (Baxter)
Despite the fact that it is obvious that Baxter in an educated woman, with ‘literary skills and social insight,’ (Spender 85) Annie Baxter is able to polish her prose to the extent that the very real hardships of her life are camouflaged under the cover of sophisticated humor. (Spender 84) it is not only this humor that makes this journal of great importance, but that the fact that Baxter’s journals is an extensive look at ‘one woman’s experience of the problems which are part of the commonalities of so many women’s lives in Australia’. (Spender 85)
Annie is not a stereotypical wife, as she has humor, and contempt for her husband, however her approach to Australian life is typical. Following her husband out here, and giving it all a fair go, a trait that later in our history becomes a typical Australian trait. From an every unique source of information we are getting a modern stereotypical freethinking Australian woman, who has gone thought hardship.
In conclusion, the representation of women in early Australian literature is not a fair representation of the women that formed our nation; but rather a stereotypical representation. This stereotypical representation of the convict, wife and mother, was not due to the lack of women in early Australia, but a lack of differing role for women to perform in early Australia. By looking at the three female protagonists discussed in this essay, we can see that many convict women were in Australian from the first settlement, from the ballad The Female Transport, and later Australian women became strong, independent wives and mothers, like expressed by the very masculine Henry Lawson in his short story The Drovers Wife, but the woman the breaks away from this mold is Annie Baxter, who in her own voice talks about her own hardship with a unique, humorous outlook, and yet this independent humors woman becomes the stereotype of the next generation of Australian women, which are represented in later text.
The history of Australian literature is extremely masculine. Written by men, about men, for men, a most ‘typically Australian outlook.’ In fact Norman Mackenzie goes as far to say that ‘Australia is more “a man’s country” than other industrial democracies’ (Wilde 271). However, women are represented within this masculine dominated literature, (Wilde 271). Nevertheless, this was a masculine world, with very few women with differing roles in society, to be represented in literature. Therefore, the ratio of men to women in early Australian literature is responding to this ratio.
The female protagonists in The Female Transport, written by an anonymous author, The Drovers Wife by Hennery Lawson, and Journal by Annie Baxter, are three different representations of women in early Australian literature, in three different genera. Each representation is different, yet they are all clear representation of womanhood in early Australia. So are …show more content…
these representations fair or still very bias? There are, the convict, the wife and the mother.
The Convict; The Female Transport
This convict ballad, The Female Transport, by an anonymous author, is written in direct speech, from the female protagonists, ‘Sarah Collins’ (Anonymous, The Female Transport), with a rhythmic pattern of AABB. This woman is a stereotypical convict. Convicted to be ‘transported for fourteen years or more/and go from hence across the seas unto Van Diemen’s shores.’ (Anonymous, The Female Transport) However, you are meant to feel sorry for this girl, who ‘every night when I lay down I wet my straw with tears, (Anonymous, The Female Transport). This girl who was brought up by her father so ‘tenderly’ did an unknown crime and was punished (Anonymous, The Female Transport). This ballad is meant to serve as a warning to others. (Trigger and Griffiths 86)
Sarah was represented as a woman who was tainted by bad company and was now paying the price. Women convicts were transported to ‘Van Diemen’s Land from the time of the initial establishment of the colony in 1803 until 1853. During that time, 5 female factories were established in Van Diemen’s Land’ (Crowley). This representation of female convicts in this ballad was very stereotypical of the first female influx in the white colonies of Australia. Sarah’s hardship is also stereotypical, as she describes as being chained, ‘two by two,’ whipped, starved, worked to the bone under the Australian ‘burning sun’ and expresses such misery that she thinks of dying in her sleep. (Anonymous, The Female Transport) this sort of treatment was no usual for female convicts as Crowley explains that ‘These factories housed only female convicts and were designed as places of labor … as well as places of punishment’. (Crowley)
The Mother; The Drovers Wife by Hennery Lawson, In a masculine world, it is not surprising that a man; Henry Lawson, represented a woman in his short story The Drovers Wife.
This short story represents the conflicts of an Australian woman; who is married to a drover, a job that requires him to be absent from his family for months on end. Via Lawson is not giving this woman a name, only known as the male’s wife, and a mother to her children, with no name for herself, created a character that is stereotypical for any Drovers wife.
Lawson represents this woman as a mother with a ‘gaunt, sun-browned bushwoman,’ with a ‘worn-out breast,’ (Lawson). This woman is obviously an educated woman, who reads the Young Ladies' Journal. (Lawson) Lawson goes on to suggest that this woman is the man of the house, who does everything around the house, she as well as doing everything that a husband would normally do. She would fight bushfires, ‘a mad bullock’ handle a gun and ward of
snakes.
She is described as a loving mother, but one who does not have the time to show this affection, but yet we feel a strong empathy and sympathy for this woman, who he describes ‘She is not a coward, but recent events have shaken her nerves. A little son of her brother-in-law was lately bitten by a snake, and died. Besides, she has not heard from her husband for six months, and is anxious about him’ (Lawson) She also identifies as an Australian: ‘Her husband is an Australian, and so is she’ (Lawson).
With little action, this represents the lack of action in life for the female protagonist ‘all days are much the same to her.’ (Lawson) the lives of people in the Outback are moulded by the environment so that they, too, become hardened, desiccated, silent, and of necessity even predatory. These are the actions of a woman born in Australia and accustomed to the Australian way.
Lawson’s protagonist is a sad figure who understands that people depend on her for their survival and that she has no choice but to continue to battle the elements and cope with the unremitting bleakness of her existence. She is brave and resourceful, but worn down and emotionally exhausted. One wouldn’t wish her existence on anybody.
According to Carrera-Suarez, Lawson has created ‘the archetype of the pioneer bush-woman, a heroic mother left on her own by the drover husband, resigned to her fate, battling against the elements and winning’ (Carrera-Suarez 140).
The Wife, Journals by Annie Baxter
The next stereotype is that of the wife. A woman who accompanied her husband to the new land, who had to deal with the hardships that came with this harsh land. One real life author was that of Annie Baxter (1816-1905). This woman was the author of the first known major autobiographic work, writing over ‘thirty-six volumes of autobiography to sustain herself as a human being’ (Spender 82). These journals and letters from a distinct literary genre and offer a very unique insight into the lives of these women, which is absent from a lot of early colonial literature.
‘my journal: I always come to you to enumerate my grievances. No one shears the secrets of my heart as you do- and why? Because your pages, like my little troubles, will never be seen!’ (Annie Baxter, 1984 36)
‘Married at seventeen’ Annie accompanied her husband a Lieutenant to Van Diemen’s Land, where she started her journal in 1834, (Spender 82). In her journals on January 1840, Baxter describes her new living conditions as ‘approaching barbarism,’ (Baxter) with the ‘absence of food, shelter and friends- and the presence of danger and drudgery.’ (Spender 84). Baxter goes on to describe their survival methods as they were ‘determined not to get into debt’ and so they ‘commenced feeding themselves on corn-meal’ due to the high price foodstuffs like that of flour and rice. (Baxter)
Despite the fact that it is obvious that Baxter in an educated woman, with ‘literary skills and social insight,’ (Spender 85) Annie Baxter is able to polish her prose to the extent that the very real hardships of her life are camouflaged under the cover of sophisticated humor. (Spender 84) it is not only this humor that makes this journal of great importance, but that the fact that Baxter’s journals is an extensive look at ‘one woman’s experience of the problems which are part of the commonalities of so many women’s lives in Australia’. (Spender 85)
Annie is not a stereotypical wife, as she has humor, and contempt for her husband, however her approach to Australian life is typical. Following her husband out here, and giving it all a fair go, a trait that later in our history becomes a typical Australian trait. From an every unique source of information we are getting a modern stereotypical freethinking Australian woman, who has gone thought hardship.
In conclusion, the representation of women in early Australian literature is not a fair representation of the women that formed our nation; but rather a stereotypical representation. This stereotypical representation of the convict, wife and mother, was not due to the lack of women in early Australia, but a lack of differing role for women to perform in early Australia. By looking at the three female protagonists discussed in this essay, we can see that many convict women were in Australian from the first settlement, from the ballad The Female Transport, and later Australian women became strong, independent wives and mothers, like expressed by the very masculine Henry Lawson in his short story The Drovers Wife, but the woman the breaks away from this mold is Annie Baxter, who in her own voice talks about her own hardship with a unique, humorous outlook, and yet this independent humors woman becomes the stereotype of the next generation of Australian women, which are represented in later text.