What specific ‘Australian’ image/s are portrayed by the two poems? Compare the two poems and show how the composers differ/don’t differ in their respective perspectives on the image/s.
Australian images are portrayed though two similar poems that depict the deaths of Australian bushrangers. Bushrangers in the history of Australia have a special place in the hearts and the imaginations of Australians. Banjo Patterson and Will. H. Ogilvie presents the two deaths of well known bushrangers, Ben Hall and John Gilbert in poems ‘How Gilbert died’ and ‘The Death of Ben Hall’. These composers portray iconic Australian images of Australian bushrangers, as well as the traitorous ‘mates’ that these bushrangers trusted, only to find out that they have been sold for the matter of greed. The composers cleverly represent the Australian images through intensified imagery and techniques throughout the poems to enforce the idea of the Australian image.
Outlaw are remembered with pride and admiration rather than the contempt and hate that they probably deserved, as many were violent and ruthless criminals who made their livings by murdering and stealing. Their bravado, self reliance, adventurous lifestyle has appealed to generations of Australians, ‘the smallest child on Watershed can tell you how Gilbert died’. Both composers depict the struggle the police had on capturing the two outlaws that successfully left no trail behind them. Patterson describes how Gilbert was an impossible catch that the police had hired ‘a black who tracked like a human hound’, even with an Aborigine who knew everything about the land, found ‘no sign of a track could find’. Similarly Will. H. Ogilvie complements Ben Hall and the image of Australian bushrangers as outlaws that were elegant in what they did. Ogilvie describes Ben Hall as an outlaw that ‘stole like a hunted fox’. ‘And peered like a hawk from his eyrie rocks.. on the troopers riding beneath’, the composer cleverly uses these two similes that gives Ben Hall the characteristics of two animals that are seen as stealthy creatures, enforcing the idea of the image of Australian bushrangers as outlaws that were intelligent and successful in getting away for the crimes that they had committed.