Henry Lawson Essay Lawson’s characters are ultimately defeated by the harshness of their circumstances. In Henry Lawson’s The Bush Undertaker and The Drover’s Wife, the protagonists are eventually beaten by the brutality of their circumstances. Each main character is emotionally and physically damaged as a result of the lives they lead. They do not wish to be in the conditions which they are currently in; neither is happy living the way they are. However, the characters do show some amount of resilience and do their best to fight through their hardships. Lawson’s characters face both physical and psychological trauma as a result of the conditions they must live with. The first description of the drover’s wife, “The gaunt, sunbrowned bushwoman” …show more content…
Despite missing her husband, the drover’s wife is “used to the loneliness of it”; she has adapted to cope with her situation, showing how she is fighting through her undesirable lifestyle. The old man reveals that Brummy “uster say as how it ‘ud be alright termorrer”, and later mentions that tomorrow has come for Brummy but not him; he is implying that he is awaiting his death, and this seems to be his motivation for working hard. At the conclusion of The Bush Undertaker, “he rose, took up the tools, and walked back to the hut”, demonstrating that he will continue to work until his demise, even despite the death of his friend. In this way, the old man could be thought to be unbeaten despite his tough situation. Each of the protagonists in Lawson’s stories show a level of resilience which suggests that they have not stopped struggling against their circumstances. Henry Lawson’s short stories, The Bush Undertaker and The Drover’s Wife, demonstrate characters being overall defeated by the harshness of their situations. Each protagonist is physically and psychologically damaged by their circumstances. They are not happy with their current lifestyles, and would change them if they had the power to. However, they do continue to fight through their difficulties. Ultimately, the stories show a reader that people can only cope with a certain amount of hardship before they begin to be permanently altered, despite the appearance of coping on the