What role does the landscape play in contributing to three Australian

In this essay I will consider the roles of city and country in three short stories; Water Them Geraniums by Henry Lawson, Short-Shift Saturday by Gavin Casey, and Trees Can Speak by Alan Marshall. I will argue through contributing to character development, they provide insight into the construction of contempory Australian identity. In Water Them Geraniums the outback is shown to be an emasculating force, particularly for women, that strips away their humanity until they function in a mechanical way to survive off the land. In Short-Shift Saturday the narrator is a product of an inherited colonial culture and imagines that it is the alien landscape and culture in which he lives that is the agent of his suffering. In reality, the countryside is used as a device to allow pathetic fallacy, reflecting the emotional state of the main protagonist. In Trees Can Speak the main character is the personification of the land and demonstrates the desirable state of being in harmony with the bush. I will put forward that across these three stories, the relationship between the characters and their environment is used to chart a period of progression from English myths and ideals onto the emergence of an Australian identity.

At the start of Water Them Geraniums, Joe Wilson and his wife Mary are in the process of moving out to land near Lahey’s Creek, where they intend to take up a selection. The path they are riding along is ‘a dreary, hopeless track’ with ‘no horizon’ and ‘gnarled and stunted trees in every direction ’.This track is a metaphor for the path their life together has taken. It is ‘the dry season’ of their marriage. The couple have ‘got out of the habit of talking to each other’ and no longer have any plans for the future. Something that is emphasized as important to characters who live in the bush and stay sane, is having something to look forward to. As Joe says:

Shepherds and boundary riders, who are alone for months, must have their periodical spree, at the nearest shanty, else they’d go raving mad…the yearly or half-yearly spree is the only thing they’ve got to look forward to: it keeps their minds fixed on something definite ahead.

The fact that the horizon Joe and Mary are riding toward has nothing on it, is a bad omen for their mental, emotional and physical health. It indicates that it is the lack of anything to look forward to in the ‘changeles...

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...interaction with others according to social convention whilst their husbands do not. They are also disgusted by displays of uncouth behaviour. In both stories the countryside is viewed in opposition to the city and is seen as isolated, a place where people are distanced from civilisation and therefore, “no place for a woman”. Both Henry Lawson and Gavin Casey conclude that, if they have lived anywhere else, they react badly to a domain where the physical ability to survive on the land is the primary requirement of settlers, or a place without the culture they had been used to. The countryside is a place where what was needed for eking out an existence from natural resources were male traits, and therefore men played a pivotal role in forging the Australian way of life and in making it distinct from European traditions. The male characters in all the stories have a strong connection to the land. Whether the land nurtures or thwarts them, their experience of working on it leads them to respect it. The land is therefore instrumental in building a common sense of empathy among men and in dividing them from women, as the two sexes are removed from each other’s experience and concerns.