Author: Jahnu Deori

Abstract: Henry Lawson’s The Drover’s Wife (1892) occupies an ambivalent position in Australian literary history. The short story is celebrated as a portrait of bush resilience; however, it operates within a deeply patriarchal framework. This article conducts a systematic close reading to identify the interlocking sexist mechanisms within the narrative. The story seems to erase the wife’s persistent feminine subjectivity, framing adult female responsibility as the renunciation of “girlish” desire. At the same time, the wife’s achievements are transferred to male figures, including her absent husband, her young sons, and other bushmen, thereby denying her autonomous agency. Furthermore, the narrative genders emotional expression as weakness, which denies the wife legitimate grief while normalizing male neglect and potential infidelity. The article argues that The Drover's Wife does not celebrate female strength so much as contain it. The bush setting naturalizes a hierarchy in which masculine presence, even when absent, remains the ultimate source of legitimacy and security.

Keywords: Australian identity, bush myth, female desire, gendered hierarchy, masculine identity, subjectivity

Article Info: Received: 29 Jul 2025; Received in revised form: 22 Aug 2025; Accepted: 27 Aug 2025; Available online: 31 Aug 2025

DOI: 10.22161/ijels.104.101