Water them geraniums by henry lawson essay

Like “The Drover’s Wife,” “‘Water Them Geraniums’” is primarily a story of women in the Bush. Yet it is a deeper, more psychological analysis of what the Bush does to a person than the earlier story. Ostensibly, it is about the narrator, Joe Wilson, and his wife, Mary, and their move to a new home in the Outback.

This mateship or union solidarity is an ideal that underwrites much of Lawson’s thinking, but it is rarely embodied in the world he presents. Most of the gathered crowd are too drunk to follow once the procession begins; the horseman who leaves to join his friend at the bar is an emblem of how good intentions get undermined in the Bush.

Lawson's harsh, vivid descriptions countered a tradition in Australian literature that romanticized the outback and idealized its inhabitants. In many of the stories, however, Lawson also depicted kindness in his characters and celebrated the idealistic concept of mateship.

The central story in the sequence, “‘Water Them Geraniums,’” is often regarded as Lawson’s finest achievement as a short-story writer. Like “The Drover’s Wife,” “‘Water Them Geraniums’” is primarily a story of women in the Bush. Yet it is a deeper, more psychological analysis of what the Bush does to a person than the earlier story.