Distinctly Visual

Distinctively visual texts are texts that allow the audience to create an image within their mind, using an array of language and visual techniques. Henry Lawson, an Australian bushman and author of the late nineteenth century, demonstrates the experiences of bush life through his numerous short stories. Other texts however, like a photograph or a painting, create an image or a scene in the viewers' mind to demonstrate particular experiences expressed within the text. Frederick McCubbin, also from the late nineteenth century, displays life in outback Australia through his paintings.

Mostly, those who lived in remote areas of outback Australia in the late nineteenth century experienced hardships as a part of their daily life. Lawson's story The Drover's Wife illustrates the rough life of women in the bush and the hardships these women face. The woman of the story, placed as the protagonist, is left unnamed. This depersonalisation indicates that Lawson is stereotyping all women who live in the bush. The story describes the woman as highly independent, as she lives the majority of her life without her husband or other adult company for lengths at a time, only her children for company. "She is used to being left alone. She once lived like this for eighteen months. As a girl she built all the usual castles in the air; but all her girlish hopes and aspirations have long been dead." Lawson emphasised the woman's hardship through the contrast between her old life in the city, and life in the outback. The opening paragraphs of The Drover's Wife illustrate the harshness of the environment in which the woman lives, before venturing into the bulk of the story. The direct description of the house in such a matter-of-fact tone and the detailed imagery of the flora, like the "stunted, rotten native apple trees," introduces the element of hardship early in the piece, impressing on the reader the notion that bush life was a struggle.

The hardship of life in the outback is