A Brave but Lonely Housewife

A Brave but Lonely Housewife

      Henry Lawson, also known as Australia's "greatest short story writer". The Drover's Wife is one of his famous short story. This story tells us a lonely brave mother who lives in bush fights against a snake and finally she successes with the help of a dog. The story also mentions the mother’s memory about how she overcomes obstacles bravely in her lonely life.

      The woman is tough. She is a mother of four children, a wife of the drover and a housewife of her family. Her husband is always outside, so she has to be brave enough to protect her children, her family and herself because she is the only adult in the family. As a mother, she has to take care of her children, solve little problems between her children. Mother is a normal role that every women in the society can be played. As a housewife, she not only does the housework like other housewives do, but also does something a man should does: such as fought with a bush-fire, a flood, the pleuro-pneumonia and a mad bullock. With more and more obstacles she has overcame alone, she became more and more independent and used to them. She has to do the so called men’s work for she has no choice.

      She is a normal and lonely mother sometime, and she always dreams about being a happy woman favored by her husband. However, her husband’s absence gives her the chances to be a tough and brave woman, although she does not need the chances. Female are eager to be a full time housewife at that time, included her. For example, she cried when the dam was broken. She was breakdown at that time, helplessly. She is just a normal women who does every hard things by her own. Loneliness, helplessness, desperation were the only feeling she could feel at that time. For other examples, on Sunday afternoon, she dresses herself goes for a lonely walk, and make both herself and the children look smart. She uses a handkerchief to wipe the tears away. From the details we can see that she is a sensitive woman who does not forget to remind herself she is just an ordinary housewife. However, the holes on the handkerchief betrays her. It reminds her that she cannot be a house wife only; it reminds her that she has the mission to support her whole family. She has to go back to the real world, to act as a man no matter how bitter her heart is.

      A woman’s role is depends on the society and environment she lives in. The mother in the story can defeat the snake not only because she is brave and clever, but also because she has no choice to find someone else to help her. She plays a role that usually a man does.