Distinctly_Visual_Essay

In his short stories, “The Drover’s Wife” and “The Loaded Dog”, Henry Lawson uses distinctively visual images to convey to his readers the characters and the experience of living in the Australian outback. Similarly, in the short film, “My Constellation”, Toby Morris clearly depicts his ideas about the experience of an individual that has a new found ambition. In “The Drover’s Wife”, Lawson helps the reader to distinctly depict the harsh experience of life in the bush for a woman living on her own. He creates a vivid image of the desolate, isolating environment that she faces every day. This is shown in the line, “Bush all round - bush with no horizon, for the country is flat. No ranges in the distance...Nothing to relieve the eye save the darker green of a few she-oaks which are sighing...” The desolate nature of the picture that the reader creates in their mind is enhanced by the repetition of the word “bush”, which helps us to imagine the monotony of the landscape, and the isolation of the drover’s wife. Likewise, the personified trees help to convey a sense of weariness, adding to the overall image of desolation, and allowing us to clearly imagine the harsh environment that the drover’s wife experiences on a daily basis. Just as Lawson creates a vivid image of the lonely, desolated life the drover’s wife experiences, so in the short film, “My Constellation”, Morris clearly depicts the image of the protagonist’s lonely life, experiencing a longing for someone. He opens his film with a wide open shot of a star-filled night sky with the protagonist staring thoughtfully upwards. The darkness and the lack of lighting in this scene emphasizes to the viewer that the protagonist is experiencing a sense of loss and isolation. This effect is also emphasized by the close up shot of the protagonists blank, thoughtful expression and the lazy, slothful body language. The medium shot, slowly panning to the left as the protagonist enters back into his bedroom shows an image of a lamp illuminating the left side of the dark bedroom, close up shot of the light shining on a photo of a man who looks like a father figure, symbolizing the fact that this man is like a star, a bright part of his life, illuminating the darkness. This effect points out to the viewer of the protagonists experience of longing someone very important. In “The Loaded Dog”, however, Lawson focuses more explicitly on the actions of his characters, in order to create strong, humorous images of their experiences with the “loaded” dog. At the beginning of the story, he depicts in detail the process of making cartridge through the line, “...they’d dip the cartridge in melted tallow to make it water-tight, get the drill hole as dry as possible drop in the cartridge with some dry dust, and wad and ram with stiff clay and broken brick.” The long sentence and cumulated verbs and adjectives allows us to picture the cartridge in detail, and the amount of effort that the three men put into making it. The title of the story imbues this scene with a degree of humorous dramatic irony, so that, to some extent, we can already “see” what is going to happen to the three men. Lawson brings their experience to life more vividly when he invites the reader to picture their dog, Tommy which is shown through the line, “Most of his head was usually red, idiotic, slobbering grin of appreciation of his own silliness. He seemed to take life, the world, his two-legged mates, and his own instinct as a huge joke.” The personified image of the dog helps us to imagine not only his enthusiastic energy and friendliness, but also his importance to the three men, who, through the use of the compound word “two-legged”, are humorously presented as friends of the dog. Lawson provides anecdotal descriptions of the men’s experiences with the dog through the line, “He’d retrieve anything: He carted back most of the camp rubbish...the dog found the dead cat...and carried it back to camp...He used to retrieve them when they went swimming.” This cumulation of anecdotes allows us to picture his importance in their lives, while also building the dramatic irony and our visual awareness of the men’s foolishness in creating such a “formidable bomb”. Similar to how Lawson emphasizes the dog’s importance for the three men, in “My Constellation”, Morris also creates a vivid image of the father’s importance for the protagonist, to build up the purpose of the film. He portrays the protagonist riding a bicycle with a string of shining light bulbs in the dead of night. The medium shot of him riding the bicycle panning upwards symbolizes the journey that the protagonist goes through and the motif of light bulbs illuminating through the darkness symbolizes the stars in the night sky. This effect indicates to the viewer that the protagonist is alluding to his father being in space, going on a journey through the stars, emphasizing the idea that idolizes his father and wants to follow in his footsteps. Like the images of the journey that the protagonist undergoes in the film, Henry Lawson creates vivid images of the journey and the past events that the drover’s wife has experienced in her husband’s absence, so that we are able to understand the experiences and her hardships that she has endured. Lawson provides anecdotal descriptions of the wife’s past hardships through the line, “She put on an old pair of her husband’s trousers and beat out the flames with a green bough”. Lawson creates an image to the reader of the bush woman in her husband’s trousers which symbolizes the dual role and the wide range of responsibilities she is faced with in her husband’s absence. Her hardships are further emphasized in the line, “...till great drops of sooty perspiration stood out on her forehead and ran in streaks down her blackened arms.” The cumulation of adjectives and verbs create a vivid visual image of the drover’s wife determinedly fighting the fire, which clearly conveys to the reader of her strength and courage in the face of extreme hardship. In both “The Drover’s Wife” and “The Loaded Dog”, Lawson has used a variety of techniques to clearly depict vivid images of the experiences the characters have endured with each other and with the Australian outback. Similarly, in “My Constellation”, Morris has also vividly represented the journey and ambition the protagonist goes through.