Through its nameless female protagonist and realism literature, Barbara Baynton's The Chosen Vessel (1896), depicts a time in Australia's history regarding the male-domination and treatment of women while living in the outback. Baynton’s implementation of religious symbolism influences the creation and outcome of the female protagonist in the story. The central character in The Chosen Vessel feature similarities to Henry Lawson’s female protagonist in his story The Drover’s Wife (1892). Both face a time in Australia’s outback regarding the complete control of male figures, while they face their surroundings of the lonesome land and treacherous wanderers. With Baynton’s extensive use of symbolic meaning throughout The Chosen Vessel, (the entire …show more content…
If The Chosen Vessel’s female character was to survive in the story, her mature self would include many similarities to the drover’s wife. Living unwillingly in these outback locations, they both face the absence of their husbands and the fear of their surroundings, of the nature and of man. Externally the drover’s wife appears strong and well-adjusted to life in the outback, however “She is glad when her husband returns, but she does not gush or make a fuss about it.” (Lawson 1892). Both characters always fear their ambience of the unknown. Even though in Baynton’s text, the female character openly states that she is terrified to her husband: “when she had dared to speak of the dangers to which her loneliness exposed her, he had taunted and sneered at her” (Baynton 1896). With the drover’s wife older and somewhat familiar of the elements of the outback, it still represents how women attempt to adjust to this rural environment. Even though there are many complications: “Her surroundings are not favourable to the development of the ‘womanly’ or sentimental side of nature”(Lawson 1892). They face the hardships of living in isolation, where they spend majority of their days in danger of wanderers and their deserted surroundings. Both Lawson and Baynton create a complete unromantic view on these rural destinations, instead representing the terrors that truly