Nowhere are the horrors of outback life more powerfully represented than in the short stories of Barbara Baynton” (Schaffer. 148).
The history of Australia gives many instances that the existence of women in Australia is different from that of the other countries as they are deprived of freedom and at the same time they have to struggle in the unremittingly harsh physical circumstances. In the words of Ferguson “women’s writing would reflect women’s real worlds and their real experiences” (Quoted in Tharu and K. Lalitha. 17).
The artistic achievement of Barbara Baynton has been something like contributing a new creative voice regarding the plight of the people in the Australian bush. She is quite independent in her choices and has been admitted by many other writers as a lesser imitation of the established, traditional male bush writing of the period. A.A. Phillips applies the label ‘dissidence’ to the character of Barbara Baynton’s writing and further he says that she exhibits an ‘undercurrent of revolt against the barbaric fate of being an Australian’ (Schaffer …show more content…
It has won much admiration for her, ‘with its mawkish plot characteristic of soppy fiction’ (Frost 59). Here the central character is a nameless young pregnant woman who deeply wishes to see her mother after a lapse of years. The first knowledge which any woman remembers about one’s mother is warmth love, nourishment, care and concern, tenderness, security and sensuality. After many years, the protagonist of the story arrives at the station late in the cold night to pay her mother a long overdue visit. To her dismay, she finds no one at the station except the dog to welcome her. And she has to walk nearly three bush miles through the savage, storm-ridden