The document analyzes Henry Lawson's 'Joe Wilson's Courtship,' focusing on how visual imagery is crafted through literary techniques and themes such as love, social anxiety, and mateship. It highlights Joe's reflective narrative about his romantic pursuits and personal growth amidst the challenges of the bush lifestyle. Key elements discussed include characterizations, setting descriptions, and the use of symbolism in the text.

1. Henry Lawson: Joe
Wilson’s Courtship
Distinctively Visual

2. Distinctively Visual
As part of this study you will be asked
to explore the ways the images we see
and/or visualise in texts are created.
You will consider how literary form
and structure and the language used in
different texts create these images, affect
interpretation and shape meaning.

3. Distinctively Visual
The scenes created by Lawson allow the
reader to appreciate a place they have
never seen. He draws on personal
experience to depict a bush lifestyle that is
fast disappearing.

4. Distinctively Visual:
elements conveyed
through …
Context Audience Form
Imagery Symbolism language

5. Henry Lawson
 Who is he?
 What are his views?
 What does he value?
 Look at the Historical
Context of the text to
gain insight into
Lawson and his work.

6. Joe Wilson’s Courtship
The story is romantic personal
reflection on the ritual of courting
told by an older and wiser Joe Wilson
as he looks back on his past. Parallels
can be made with Lawson’s own
marriage to Bertha and their later
acrimonious divorce. It is also
reinforced by comparing it to Black
and his sour relationship with his wife.

7. Joe Wilson’s Courtship
Themes:
•love, romance,
physical and
social anxiety,
mateship and
courtship.

8. Joe Wilson’s Courtship
Social Anxiety:
•is the fear of interaction
with other people that
brings on self-
consciousness, feelings
of being negatively
judged and evaluated,
and, as a result, leads to
avoidance.

9. Joe Wilson’s Courtship
Courtship:
•Is the period during
which a couple develop
a romantic relationship
before getting married
Joe looks back on the
time when he meets
and falls in love with
Mary.

10. Joe Wilson’s Courtship
Mateship:
The harsh environment in which
convicts and new settlers
found themselves meant that
men and women closely relied
on each other for help. In
Australia, a 'mate' is more than
just a friend. It's a term that
implies a sense of shared
experience, mutual respect
and unconditional assistance.

11. Joe Wilson’s Courtship
•First Person, Past
Tense, linear
narrative.
Narrative Style:

12. Joe Wilson’s Courtship
•Australian Bush, people
moving from farm to farm
for work on horseback.
•Haviland is a “few miles
out of Solong,” a “little
farming town”.
Setting

13. Joe Wilson’s Courtship
•It was a two-storey brick house with
wide balconies and verandahs all
round, and a double row of pines
down to the front gate … There was
a wide, old-fashioned, brick-floored
verandah in front, with an open end;
there was ivy climbing up the
verandah post on one side and a
baby-rose on the other, and a grape-
vine near the chimney.
Setting: Haviland

14. Joe Wilson’s Courtship
•Lawson uses direct
speech, and the bush
vernacular of the time
to convey meaning.
Language

15. Characterisation:
•Joe tells us, 'I remember the first glimpse I got of Mary'. Joe is shy and
inexperienced when it comes to love and romance. He often mis-reads the
actions and reactions of Mary and looks towards Jack for advice.
•'make the most of your courting days, you young chaps'
Joe Wilson: Narrator
•Jack is referred to as a bit of a drunk and a gambler - all traits inherited from
his father
•Jack is a 'married man' and Joe tells us he is 'privileged' in that because of this
he has a better understanding of what women want and what they mean.
•Jack gives Joe much advice about Mary and tries to 'push' them together
Jack Barnes:
•Mary is the subject of Joe's courtship.
•Mary is living with Black 'the squatter' at Haviland
•She is called 'Possum' because of her large bright eyes
Mary Brand:

16. Characterisation:
•I was between twenty-one and thirty
then … You don't take much stock in
birthdays in the Bush. I'd knocked about
the country for a few years, shearing and
fencing and droving a little, and wasting
my life without getting anything for it. I
drank now and then, and made a fool of
myself. I was reckoned 'wild'; but I only
drank because I felt less sensitive, and
the world seemed a lot saner and better
and kinder when I had a few drinks”
Joe Wilson: Narrator

17. Humour
•“I volunteered to help her. I held down
the line while she threw the things over
and pegged out. 'There's only a few
more things in the basket, Miss Brand,' I
said. 'You can't reach--I'll fix 'em up.’ She
seemed to give a little gasp. 'Oh, those
things are not ready yet,’…''Oh, it's no
trouble,’… and I made a reach into the
basket. But she flushed red, with temper I
… and snatched the basket away.
Pegging out the clothes

18. Joe Wilson’s Courtship
• “There are many times in this world
when a healthy boy is happy. When
he is put into … knickerbockers, for
instance, and “comes a man to-
day”, as my little Jim used to say.
When they're cooking something at
home that he likes. When the “sandy
blight” or measles breaks out
amongst the children.…”
Opening Sequence

19. Symbolism
•Joe believed that Mary was looking after
him – her actions her meant that she was
interested. Joe had made a mistake.
•“Next day I found one of the skillion rooms
scrubbed out and a bed fixed up for me”
…“Next day there were sheets on my bed”
… “And next day there was a little table in
my room with a crocheted cover and a
looking-glass.
•“I saw the half-caste cook tidying up your
room this morning.'
Cleaning Joe’s Room

20. Symbolism
• The vines may have deeper meaning: a rose
could be symbolic of love, ivy a symbol
femininity and marriage, the grape vine of
friendships and the connectedness to nature.
• “there was ivy climbing up the verandah post
on one side and a baby-rose on the other,
and a grape-vine near the chimney.”
• “so it was in the frame of vines that I first saw
her.”
• “I've had a fancy to wonder whether the rose-
bush killed the grape-vine or the ivy smothered
'em both in the end”
The ivy, rose and grape vine

21. Literary Devices
• "do you remember the first glimpse you got of
your wife?" - "I remember the first glimpse I got of
Mary"
Rhetorical Question:
• Joe describes Mary as a 'filly' and then mentions
that she 'trotts' around
Extended Metaphor:
• Jack 'yarning' with Mary
Vernacular:

22. Literary Devices
• Jack tells Joe to use the window as a 'looking glass to
view Mary. he says its 'as simple as striking matches' -
Jack tells Mary the Joe 'is as tough as fencing wire'
Simile:
• Joe tells us that on seeing Mary, "my heart suddenly
commenced to gallop"
Personification:
• “Make the most of your courting days, you young
chaps”
Repetition