The extract taken from the Australian novel, 'The Battlers' is the opening of the novel written by Kylie Tennant, an Austrlian author.
English Commentary Eda Karaman
The extract taken from the Australian novel, ‘The Battlers’ is the opening of the novel written by Kylie Tennant, an Austrlian author. Throughout this extract the Australian scenery and outback is skillyfully expressed by the author during the early nineties. A character in the story, known as ‘Snow’ is described as he decides on which path he should take for his journey back home. The extract is told from the third person. This allows the reader to visualize the actions of the protagonist and by doing so have a better understanding of the events taking place.
The title of the extract is somewhat effective in portraying the hardships that take place during the 1940’s where life was not so simple and was full of adversity resulting in men to travel for long distances in order to find jobs to support there families. ‘The Battlers,’ depict that to survive such severe lifestyles u needed to be a ‘battler,’ a person who works hard for little results.
The first paragraph depicts many things such as the setting, the protagonist and his way of life. ‘If Snow had taken the road through Belburra, instead of the track through Currawong, his whole life would have run a different course,’ this grows interest in the reader who wants to keep on reading to find out what was the changing factors in his life.
The setting of the poem is portrayed in the second paragraph where it occuring in the Austrlian outback is apparent through the use of various literary techniques. The incidence of the kangaroos, the weather conditions and the open plains are all exclusive conditions of the Australian outback. These sceneries are expressed vividly in the following lines; ‘From Narrabri to Moree in a loneliness where mirages smoke,’ Narrabri and Moree are towns found in Australia however this line depicts how isolated these places are that even ‘illusions’ seem to be smoking referring to them as not having anything to do. ‘And great brown kangaroos leap away from the road,’ kangaroos being an Australian animal and found vastly in the outback add to Australian scenery. ‘Where the enfiladed telegraph-poles dwindle to a pinpoint and disappear over the rim of the earth,’ here the author is portraying the vast stretched land of telegraph poles and as you look onto the land how isolated it seems as the only thing in sight is the telegraph poles and there diminishing appearance as you look onto the land ahead. Conveying the weather also reveals to the Australian outback, ‘where the ground is baked like a tile in the summer,’ the extreme weather during the summer has caused the rocks on the ground to harden as if to become like tiles. ‘And in winter forms a black bog that dovers dread,’ as the ground becomes wet and muddy because of the roads instability causing the dovers dread it. The author empahizes on the setting of the poem as she continously illustrates the Australian outback in paragraph five. ‘Two great coral trees red-pink coloured lifted naked gray branchers that showed instead of leaves, cluster of flowers, curved blades of scarlet around stamens.’ Here the author is depicting the natural surroundings and the amazing bright red colour that these flowers portay. To allow the reader to visualize the immense colour of these flowers the author follows it by the line ‘as though a flock of fiery-coloured birds were tilting their tail-feathers in council.’
