Perspectives

Literary period

The short story “The Drover’s Wife” by Henry Lawson is an example of realism which began to be used in Australian literature in the early nineteenth century. 

Australian writers who use realism often write about the outback, avoiding the romantic descriptions of previous writers. The short story presents the outback as a harsh environment. The focus of the story is the struggle to survive in the harsh Australian landscape. 

Australian writers who used realism in their stories also focused on characters typical to the Australian outback. “The Drover’s Wife”, for example, focuses on a woman who lives in an isolated area, while her husband earns money by traveling with other people’s herds of sheep. The theme of survival present in the sto...