The Courts of the Lord

by Fay Zwicky

Life is full of high points and low points, so are relationships. Fay Zwicky explores unhappiness and hardships in relationships in The Courts of the Lord, as well a touching on mental health and the impacts it can have on relationships.

‘Growing older they have decided to separate. He thinks that he loves her … She knows that anything would be better that the way they live together,’ are common thought in many unhappy marriages often ending in divorce or separation. Zwicky illustrates how peoples relationships and bond can end, whether death do us part or not. The separation of this couple exhibits how people often make decisions based on their search for happiness, and one common way for many couples to do this is by separating. The unhappiness this couple feels causes them to question their love for each other, ‘He thinks he loves her … Does she love him?’ Zwicky uses this to demonstrate how at some point in a long-term relationship people often reevaluate and look for reasons that cause their unhappiness. 

Zwicky also demonstrates how this can have serious negative affects on your mental health, through the wife and her depression, and how her depression affects her (ex) husband, ‘The spectacle of this self help saddens and irritates him.’ 

Zwicky also explores how the bond you create with people can stay even if you separate, ‘He will buy her a present this afternoon,’ which he does to make her happy. This illustrates how caring for those closest to you is a part of human nature. 

The Union Buries Its Dead

by Henry Lawson

Respect for the dead is an concept that is present in the general global society. Henry Lawson explores themes of national value and respect in regards to the dead, as well as Australian identity within our small communities. 

Lawson illustrates how people create small communities of friends and family, with which they share a connection and bond, but often don’t care to stray far away from this community. He perfectly demonstrates how people rarely care about strangers; an exception of this is the dead. ‘We didn’t take much notice of him,’ is a common thought after interacting with a stranger, especially one from out of town. This displays the disregard people have for humans outside of their community.  

‘Four or five of funeral, who were borders at the pub,’ shows how people gain respect for people once they die, even if they had never known the deceased personally. This respect grows when the townspeople find out the dead man was a ‘union man’. Respect is a large part Australian national value, particularly for military and service people (and union in the late 1800’s - early 1900’s). 

Lawson accurately portrays the short time this mourning lasts, while they respected James John Tyson (deceased) during the immediacy of his death, it didn’t last long ‘for we had already forgotten the name.’ 

Mother

by Judah Waten

Judah Waten tells the story of a migrant family and their journey and struggles of those who up-end themselves into a different culture, in his short story Mother. He explores the hardships migrant families go through in order to acclimatise into a different society and way of life, and the struggles that come when trying to fit into a new culture. 

Waten addresses the insecurity that comes when trying to find a stable place when you move to a new country, ‘Our house always looked like we had just moved in or we were about to move out.’ This quote shows how families can feel unstable, and keep like this incase they have to move at a moments notice. This leads people to become attached to objects for sentiment reasons, as they have lost that sense of belonging. Waten shows this through the mother, ‘She never parted with anything, no matter how old it was.’ 

Waten also accurately illustrates the struggle that some have adjusting to this new way of life and new culture, ‘She [mother] would have nothing of this country; she would not even learn the language.’ While the children and the father have a slightly easier time adjusting to this new country, the mother had a harder time … ‘Before she was one day off the ship she wanted to go back.’ This conviction didn’t end with homesickness, ‘Mother never lost this hostile and ironical attitude to the new land.’ Waten successfully demonstrates how acclimatising to a new home is more difficult for some than others … ‘he [Father] began to regard this new country as his permanent home.’ 

Green Grow the Rushes

by T.A.G Hungerford

Truly past World War II, and well into the Vietnam war in the 1970’s, T.A.G Hungerford illustrates how the younger generations were beginning to aim for something more; a greater legacy than that of their parents and grandparents … ‘it was in its heyday at a time when youngsters still planned to attain to something other that retirement and the pension’. 

Hungerford’s work is known for having to be read between the lines, and he covers many themes within Green Grow the Rushes. He alludes to the mistreatment and racism towards the Aboriginal people, and the Chinese in Australia through the casual racism phrases, such as referring to Aboriginal people as ‘blacks’ and ‘Abo’s, and referring to the Chinese as ‘chows’ and ‘the Chinamen’. He also mentions the colonisation and Anglicisation of the Aboriginal people through mentioning a privileged white man ‘physically battle the black for their territory’ for his own gain. Old de Blore also ‘refused to see a Chinese market hardener as a man,’ showing how the effects of white supremacy affected peoples views. 

Hungerford demonstrates both sexism and racism through the way Old de Blore treats his Aboriginal, female slaves, and the suggest rape that can be concluded from the mentioning of his ‘tribe of half-caste kids … And still sleeping two or three nights a week with one or another of the Abo housemaids’. This combined discrimination is also shown throw women being ostracised for marrying a different race because it was ‘improbable’ for people to marry outside their own race and religion. 

Hungerford illustrates the idea of ‘it’s a small world’ by having Dinny Walsh, the main character and narrator, meet up with his childhood crush Miss Honour de Blore, now Hetty Chia/Li Po, in Macau of all places. Through this encounter Hungerford also explores the affect that the Japanese invasions had on the Chinese people, ’The Japs killed him, when they took over … They bayonetted him in the hall … When I got out, after the war, I couldn’t trace my little girl’, and how it tore people and families apart

Wedding Cake

by Susan Hampton

The pressures of a wedding affect everyone involved, especially the bride and groom. In a different view on the event, Susan Hampton write a satire based around the ‘ugly-side’ of weddings, and to explore the over-glorification of this age-old tradition. 

By saying, ‘The young woman felt uncomfortable.’ Hampton is able to alienate the main protagonist in this story, as she felt ‘she had been put in the wrong movie,’ and that she was an ‘amazon’ not a ‘princess’. This alienation of the bride allows the bride to show her true feelings towards this event, and how she felt pressured to succumb to the idea that she had to be married. Having the bride ‘not worry’ about the lack of wedding dress, and chopping her hair off Hampton is able to illustrate how the bride deems these traditions and disasters trivial, whereas most brides would proceed to freak out on anything going wrong on their ‘perfect day’. 

The determination the bride has in this story represents the social pressure on women to aspire to and fight for a marriage, and the picturesque wedding day. This is shown through the bride dragging her ‘fainter’ of a father down the aisle to a sick a pale groom, and reminding herself that ‘I am not a princess … I am an amazon,’ to keep herself strong and sane through this ordeal. 

The brides demeanour in this story also shows how people often lose sight of what the real meaning of the ceremony is; not a princess marrying a prince on the perfect day, but two people vowing to love each other under all circumstances, and fully committing to one another. 

Sybil's Kimono

by Marion Halligan

Happiness is something we all seek, all throughout our lives, and various art forms are often the source of this. Marion Halligan explores the depth of materialistic happiness, and how various art forms produce happiness but are so abnormally appreciated in our society. 

‘She dwelt a fine house, and had friends who liked to entertain her. But she was not happy.’ While many have believed all throughout history that ‘things’ bring you happiness, Sybil, who appears to have all she could want, ‘wondered why one with so many pleasures should not enjoy them.’  Halligan illustrates how material possessions, and friendships without a true connection doesn’t make people happy. ‘But still she did her duty and went out,’ is often a sign of depression, when socialising is deemed a ‘duty’. However, given that this was published between the 1970’s - 1980’s, social awareness on mental health was stunted. 

Sybil, however, finds joy in a ‘water green silk patterned with paths that wound amongst trees and across little humpbacked bridges,’ a form of art in embroidery. Art makes you feel and think, and while it can be considered a ‘material possession' it stimulates your emotions, and even the simplest painted or piece of embroidery can make you feel joyous or despairing, or any other emotion on the spectrum. A kimono in this story represents happiness, and even in the darkest of times, the influence art has on people can get even the most disdainful people to ‘believe in the virus that resides in this kimono’. 

Trees Can Speak

 by Alan Marshall

Actions can speak a thousand words, which is an ideal that appears to faded out of modern society. One of the main characters in Trees Can Speak is a man called Silent Joe, because he is mute, which makes him a social outcast, ‘This man never speaks … A few people have heard him say one word like “Hullo” or something.’ The narrator in this story has a physical disability, which can make him an outcast, but because he can still speak and communicate in the traditional way, he is still a social member of society. Alan Marshal challenges the idea that to be a functional member of society, you must be able to communicate in the same ways as everyone else, and instils the idea that you should never judge a book by it’s cover. 

By reaching put to Silent Joe, the narrator, who is never named, begins to make a connection with him, and while his comments and conversations are never reciprocated with words, he is able to understand Silent Joe because he chose to communicate with and understand him with was equal on both parts, ‘He looked at me with kindliness … beckoning like a friend.’ As they walked side by side, Silent Joe accomodating for the narrator as they walk and as they explore Silent Joe’s mine, they created a bond that probably wouldn’t have been created in different circumstances. Silent Joe understands the narrator, and can communicate with him without speaking, ‘He looked at me questioningly, a sympathetic concern shading his face.’ 

Silent Joe and the narrator have conversations just like any other two people, but the facial expressions Silent Joe uses to communicate can purvey more than a sentence could. In their parting, Silent Joe calls out ‘goodbye’, and ‘it was as if a tree had spoken’, illustrating that Silent Joe was comfortable in the connection he shared with the narrator, giving him the ability to divulge in something he has rarely done with anyone else; speak. 

Alan Marshall uses this bond these two men have formed to demonstrate that people are more than what you see on the surface; Silent Joe is, on the outside, stoic and silent like a tree, but on the inside he is compassionate and friendly. He also shows that actions can communicate more than words can. The friendship Silent Joe and the narrator created through actions, more so than words, was stronger and more meaningful than if they had just had a conversation at the grocery store, and probably wouldn’t have been created any other way. 

The Unicorn

by Dal Stivens

Unicorns have often been the mythical symbol of youth and freedom. Their innocence attracts innocence, their youth entices youth, and their beauty marvels those who glance. Dal Stivens uses the unicorn as a symbol in this story, to further explore the status virginity has in society, and how midlife crisis causes people to alter their choices in search of something liberating. 

‘ … what could I believe in, what should I do or was anything worthwhile,’ are often questions that plague the mind of those going through a life crisis. Under the influence of alcohol, ‘what could I believe in,’ because a pivotal point in the narrator’s inner monologue, because being ‘silly enough to believe [you’ve] seen a unicorn,’ is not something the average person would normally do sober. By agreeing to go search for this unicorn and ‘put his head in my virgin lap’, while ‘the whole business was zany,’ demonstrates how people in a questioning life phase abandon majority of reason to recover their self-identity. 

‘You’re a virgin, of course?’ An assumption made by a man in the presence of a young woman who is not accompanied by a male companion. Immoral in every sense, illustrates the importance and purity that virginity has in the eyes of society. Unicorns are attracted to purity and youth; virgins. The assumption made by Backhaus has underlying meaning that she was not yet owned by a man, and could be put to good use before she is tainted by the sin that is no longer a sin come marriage. Although the narrator humours Backhaus by lying about her being ‘virgo intacta’, uncovers, in this story, how a woman is of no use and off limits unless she is clean and pure. This goes back to the idea that a woman is a man’s property.  

The Mateship Syndrome

by Thelma Forshaw

Friendship, or mateship in this instance, can be used by authors to explore various social issues as themes in their writing. Thelma Forshaw uses friendship to depict the masculine culture of alcohol abuse and violence, as well as their disregard for intelligent women.

In society, people are ranked by authority based on age, therefore the older you are, the more authority you have. The rule has been stable all throughout history, with the exception of the inclusion of women. This is evident in the way The Ace asserts his ‘dignified’ male authority over his sister, ‘Because she was his senior by eight years, he made up the difference by asserting his standards,’ when according to the rule (which was probably invented by men), he should be submissive in her presence. The undertones of sexism don’t end here; in regards to his sister being ‘bookish’ and ‘free-thinking’, and evolving to be a lot nicer she is now considered in his eyes, as ‘the way a woman ought to be’. Forshaw successfully illustrates how men thought that it was their ‘duty’ to decide how women should act, behave and look. Sexism at it’s finest. 

This sexist behaviour is not the only area of male culture that needs to be re-evaluted. The dependence on alcohol that men have, even today, 28 years on from the publishing of this story, is astonishing. Forshaw perfectly depicts how men depend on alcohol to maintain a meaningful friendship, ‘He had drunk down a schooner of beer before he felt able to speak to the man next to him.’ This is an accurate representation of stereotypical male friendships, often referred to as ‘mates and drinking partners’. 

This dependence on alcohol paves the way for violence among friends, who when sober could probably obtain and maintain good friends. Instead, the alcoholics who claim to be such good friends can end a night, with one too many drinks, one guy in hospital fighting for his life, and the other running from the cops because he beat his ‘mate’ to a pulp. This is a problematic culture, and  Forshaw explores to bring social awareness to the matter. 

The Incense Burner

by John Morrison

Determination and belonging are two traits that often coincide, generally caused by hardship and, in this case, being homesick. Thomas Blair, on a trip to London is driven by his determination to get  to where he belongs; Australia, his home, made clear by his inner monologue, ‘I’d had enough of London, and I wanted a ship bound for Australia and nowhere else.’

Morrison explores not only determination and belonging in The Incense Burner, but also perspective. In the humble acceptance of Mrs Hall’s hospitality, Thomas, who was focusing on the negative aspects of life, was given some perspective that others had it worse than him, ‘It was all the hospitality she could offer me. One glance around that wretched room convinced me that I had been living better than her.’ Not only in Mrs Hall, but in the realisation that he was ‘still fresh to the struggle’. 

This perspective and homesickness drove his determination to find a job and a ship to go home, and this determination gave him the strength to work through the ‘strangest three weeks I have ever experienced’. Morrison also illustrates how people put themselves into perspective, through Thomas trying to ‘cheer himself up by comparing my circumstances to those of old Burroughs’.

Morrison successfully depicts how perspective and belonging drive determination through the story of Thomas Blair and his journey to find his way home to Australia.

References

Galimond, P. (2017). John Morrison: writer of proletarian life |. [online] Sydney Review of Books. Available at: http://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/john-morrison-writer-of-proletarian-life/ [Accessed 13 Jan. 2017]. 

Josie

by Vance Palmer

Death is something that people face every day. In Vance Palmer’s short story ‘Josie’, he discretely explores how people react to and cope with life death.

‘There had never been such quiet in the school before. No one wanted to move; no one wanted to look around.’ The quiet and shock that invades the school after the announcement of Josie’s death is harrowing, even more so when the reader learns that, ‘We had nearly forgotten about Josie … No one had ever liked Josie very much,’ demonstrating the idea that she was an outcast, making her death all the more upsetting. 

The general immediate reaction was the speculation of the circumstances of her death, illustrating the truth of human nature; fear. The fear in the children is fear of losing their lives, when they speculate that Josie died of a disease, ‘It ain’t catching, is it?’ Palmer also successfully demonstrates human remorse, ‘But it seemed wicked to think of all that now,’ in reference to people's afterthoughts on what Josie did ‘wrong’. 

One main part of this story, however, is the ways in which people justify their sins. By telling the story of Bob Sheddan, and how his quote, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner,’ changes people’s perspective on life, Palmer illustrates the ways in which people can justify their recklessness as ‘living life’, to maintain the illusion that they will go to heaven or other as relative to their own religion and beliefs. This is a coping mechanism, because death is one of the greatest fears a human can face. The tale of Josie and how her death affected her peers perfectly illustrates how people cope with the idea of death, and how they obtain religious absolution to live comfortably within themselves and their actions. 

And Women Must Weep

by Henry Handel Richardson

The undertones and themes of this short story become clear within the first paragraph, especially to those who see from a feminist lense. This story explores women’s vulnerability in a society that is ruled by men, and the social pressures that are placed upon them.

Dolly, the main protagonist in “And Women Must Weep,’ begins narrating the story from when she was getting ready for a Leap Year Ball. Her behaviour, as described as, ‘Instead of sitting, she stood very stiff and straight at the window … her long white gloves hanging loose over one arm so not to soil them,’ illustrates the sub-conscious desire women have been trained to have; to be perfect and airbrushed to appeal to and please men. 

Auntie Cha represents the female figure every girl has in her life, telling them how to act, how to speak (or not speak may be a more appropriate term), and how to appeal to men among other things, which is something that girls are taught from day one. Auntie Cha demonstrates her common role by scrutinising and ironing out every little crease, both literally and figuratively, which could ever drive a gentleman away, because that is the biggest fear women have. Chastising in such a way that seems helpful and kind, ‘ “Now, Dolly, remember not to look too serious. Or you’ll frighten the gentlemen off.” … “Come, come, child, you mustn’t tuck yourself away like that, or gentlemen will think you don’t want to dance.” … “For goodness sake, try and look agreeable,” ’ is just furthering the societal idea that women must obtain and maintain perfection to be deemed suitable by a man. 

When asked, or commanded, to dance, Dolly’s internal reaction, ‘While she had to say “Certainly,” and pretend to be very pleased, though she didn’t feel it, and really didn’t want to dance with him …’ exhibits how women will put themselves through things they don’t want to do in order to please the man and submit to society’s pressures and rules. 

By using the phrase ‘take me’ and ‘taken’ in reference to being chosen by a man, further instils the idea that women are male property, and are owned and traded from one man to another. The shame Dolly feels in not being ‘taken’ and ‘failing to attract gentlemen at the ball,’ illustrates how the social pressure placed on women can be crushing and soul destroying, because a woman is worthless without a man. 

Henry Handel Richardson first published this story in 1931, and the sexist themes in it truly reflect those in society at the time, where those like Dolly, unable to be deemed good enough for a man are frowned upon on society, because women had very little worth in society’s view otherwise. 

Introduction

Hi there! I'm Yaz.

This is a blog I have created for my Literature class, where I will be blogging about the novels and texts we study; for example, Catcher in the Rye, A Streetcar Named Desire, Great Expectations, and a collection of Australian short stories.

This particular post will just be an introduction of me, all relating to reading and literature.

I first remember learning to read when I was about 3 or 4, with my mum. I would be in bed, all tucked in and cozy, and she would read Rainbow Magic books to me until I fell asleep. My dad also read Dr Seuss tome as a baby - Fox in Sox was my favourite.

I don't have many memories of learning to read in school, but I do remember this book called 'The Girl Who Washed in Moonlight', which I was obsessed with in Year 3. I'm pretty sure I read that every day.

Over the years my reading tastes haven't changed that much. I have been reading the Harry Potter series at least twice a year since I was 7, but I do now have a range of other fantasy novels I read. The Throne of Glass series, Howl's Moving Castle, and A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) are my other favourite series. I also love The Hobbit, Fangirl, and The Dressmaker are some of my favourite stand-alone books. I do have a not-so-secret love for teen romance novels.

My current reading habits are practically non-existent. School and constant exhaustion have taken over my life, meaning I have little time to read. I try to read for half and hour before bed, but sometimes that doesn't work out.

It is very difficult for me to pick a current favourite book, but I am going to say The Hobbit. A controversial opinion I have is that The Hobbit is better than Lord of the Rings. I just find it more interesting, and not long-winded. It is one of the perfect action-fantasy novel in my opinion.

That's all for today! I shall see you next time with some analysis of Australian short stories.