Literature Australia Literature

¶ … Australian Literature: An Anthology of Writing From the Land Down Under, by Phyllis Edelson. Specifically, it will contain an analysis of pages 1-52, "What is the Australian's view of the Bush?" AUSTRALIA'S VIEW OF THE BUSH Australian's love the bush. They hate it; they suffer when they live there. It is dangerous, deadly, and always dramatic, but they love the bush. The bush makes them tough, especially the women.

They have to make due while their husbands are gone, and so they learn how to fight bush fires, have their babies on their own, and battle deadly diseases miles from their nearest neighbor. "She put on an old pair of her husband's trousers and beat out the flames with a green bough, till great drops of sooty perspiration stood out on her forehead and ran in streaks down her blackened arms" (Lawson and Edelson 7).

Of course, the stories in this section clearly recognize the bush is a dangerous and deadly place, and some women cannot conform to its harsh borders, and come to hate it as much as most people love it. "She had begun to hate the wind, and the distance, and the road, because her importance tended to dwindle" (White and Edelson 33). There are some common threads among the stories that bring cohesion to the bush experience. Almost every story has dogs in them.

Some of the dogs are surly, some are silly, and some are disinterested, but each family has a dog, and not for a pet. These are working dogs, which serve a purpose on the busman's farms. They guard the children, kill snakes, and even obligingly kill other, more intimidating dogs. The dogs represent the harshness of the bush as much as the people do, because the dogs are as hard as the people are.

These are not pampered lap dogs; they are dogs that might not be there the next day. "...but he will be bitten some day and die; most snake-dogs end that way" (Lawson and Edelson 7). All the stories show the people who live in the bush as hard workers, who face many hardships. They put up with bad weather, deadly animals, dangerous tramps that wander from house to house, and shoddy living conditions. They must love the bush to put up with so much hardship. Or, they have no other choice.

The stories do not give the impression that these people are living in the bush because they have to, they all seem to want to be there for some reason, and the implication is that they have grown to love their wild surroundings, no matter what they might say. Along with their love of the bush, all the characters here have a deep understanding of the bush - its plants, its animals, and its weather. They show a love of the land and of nature that seldom exists anymore.

The families worked the land, lived off the land, and respected the land; they knew that it could kill them as quickly as it could nurture them. "Never far from the dog the man would be at work. With axe, scythe, or hammer. Or he would be.