BARBARA BAYNTON (1857-1929)
Key Study: Bush Studies (1902)
Barbara Baynton, though a contemporary of Henry Lawson and A. B. Paterson, does not belong in the same category. The characteristics of the ‘Australian bush’ legend – which dominated Australian literature in the late 19th century – are not to be found in her work. There is no mateship and no love of the bush; no pride in Australian national identity. Those of Baynton’s characters that do manage to adapt and assimilate into the bush, do so generally by leaving behind any qualities of kindness or sympathy, to be replaced by a mercenary hardness and a bitter humour that is no humour at all.
There are seven stories in Bush Studies and all of them present the same bleak world, albeit from different angles. There is a Gothic quality to Baynton’s writing, visible most clearly in ‘A Dreamer’, with its recurring ghostly wind music and motifs of death, as well as the image of the train as a supernatural beast, with ‘rain spitting viciously at its red mouth.’[1] Later in the story, the female protagonist has a vision of a horseman ‘galloping furiously towards her.’[2] ‘The Chosen Vessel’ is another story that has distinct Gothic elements: the crow, the carrion bird as a symbol of death, and the religious/superstitious visions of Peter Hennessey, which lead him into believing that a woman crying for help is actually the Virgin Mary, and subsequently costs the woman her life.[3]
It may be said that all of Baynton’s women are victims in some aspect. Her harsh reconstructions of the Australian bush are unsuitable for human existence in general, but women in particular, for they are at the mercy of the unforgiving landscape as much as of their unsympathetic husbands, employers, or vagrants looking for sexual gratification. The woman in ‘The Chosen Vessel’ is triply a victim; she is raped by a swagman, then becomes a victim of Hennessey’s superstition (she calls out to him for help but he does not save her, and she is murdered by the swagman), and indeed of her own belief that horsemen are ‘good’, swagmen are not.[4] The fact that Peter Hennessey rides a horse is certainly no proof of his ‘goodness’ or, as it happens, his rational thinking. The swagman violates her but it is the horseman that ultimately fails her. In ‘Billy Skywonkie’, the half-Chinese housekeeper becomes a victim through not only her sex but also the stigma of being a half-caste. Even the station rouseabout is at liberty to treat her like a piece of meat and talk about her, while in her presence, as if she is a slave or a concubine.[5] Later, he makes sexual advances towards her; upon rejection he launches into a diatribe summed up with the declaration, ‘I ken get as many w’ite gins as I wanter, an’ I’d as soon tackle a gin as a chow any day!’ [6] The slatternly Mag, who operates an illicit ‘wine shanty’, also takes the notion that she is superior to the housekeeper because she is white.[7] The owner of the station, where she has been deployed, is furious when he sees her, and rants about her temerity in accepting the housekeeper’s position at all.[8] Finally, and perhaps most tellingly in Baynton’s white-supremacist society, the Chinese cook looks down on her because of her Anglo blood; half-castes have ‘too muchee longa jlaw’ for him ever to consider marrying one.[9]
There are several women in Bush Studies with a marginal amount of power: the ‘rabbit-ketcher’ (midwife) Jyne from ‘Bush Church’, whose domineering nature coupled with her midwifery skills ensures her reign over her placid husband and her neighbours[10]; also, Lizer from ‘Billy Skywonkie’, the half-Aboriginal mistress of Billy the rouseabout, of whom Billy is quite frightened.[11] Yet in their way they are also victims of life and circumstance; their characters, honed and hardened by years of bush life, are not likeable, and alienate them from other women.
Baynton’s cruellest depiction of woman as victim, however, is found in ‘Squeaker’s Mate’. Squeaker’s mate, though she is the dominant one of the pairing of her and ‘Squeaker’, and does the majority of the work while her ‘mate’ lies idle, is not dignified with a name until the very end of the story. She is stoic and uncomplaining and has adapted well to the hardship of the bush; yet still the bush betrays her, when her back is broken by a falling tree.[12] Her resilience even in the face of this tragedy is a contrast to the timidity of Baynton’s other women, but it does not give her an advantage or lessen the grimness of her fate. Her only, and bitter, triumph comes at the end of the story, when she asserts her strength of body and mind over Squeaker’s ‘new mate’, then refuses to call her dog off the traitorous Squeaker, with whom her patience has run out at last. Finally, when he is at her mercy, he calls her by name for the first time in the story.[13]
The dog in ‘Squeaker’s Mate’ is interesting because its allegiance is solely to Squeaker’s mate, rather than to the man, which adds weight to Squeaker’s mate’s status as the dominant of the two, despite her sex. The loyal friendship between a dog and his master is one frequently recognised in Lawson’s stories, but in Bush Studies it takes on a sinister additional significance. ‘Squeaker’s Mate’ aside, Baynton’s stories emphasise that a dog’s loyalty is to man; in ‘The Chosen Vessel’ this relationship serves as another reminder of the oppression of women. The story concludes with the rapist washing his cap in the creek, and the statement, ‘But the dog also was guilty’.[14] Instead of protecting the woman from her attacker, the dog joins in. ‘Scrammy ’And’ depicts a more heartwarming relationship between dog and master, with the dog seemingly gifted with human intelligence, as illustrated by the ‘answers’ he gives in response to his shepherd master’s conversation.[15] However, the brutal ending of the story – the shepherd’s death of fright, the ‘broken-ribbed dog’s fight’, an act of futility to keep the flies off his dead master – is an image that will last longer with the reader than the goodwill generated by the bond between man and dog.[16]
That being said, there is a notable absence of goodwill in most of Bush Studies. Baynton mocks the traditional ‘bush hospitality’ ideal in the first line of ‘Bush Church’: ‘The hospitality of the bush never extends to the loan of a good horse to an inexperienced rider.’[17] The people, who have gathered for the parson’s sermon, simmer in a stew of bitterness, illiteracy, ignorance, violence and dry, contemptuous humour. A potent image is that of a girl poking a billy-goat with a stick; she deliberately allows him to get close to the bucket of water so that she can poke him, taking pleasure in his thwarting.[18] The girl, Jinny, is later fleshed out as a person of intelligence and cunning, who has little regard for adult authority; the other children are just as unpleasant in a duller way. The parson has travelled to the remote station to bring the word of God, yet the whole exercise is a farce; these people, hardened and dehumanised by the bush, are so far removed from Christianity that religion means nothing to them; they are less in awe of the Lord than of Keogh, the local squatter, upon whom their livelihood depends.[19] The story ends with the unrepentant children having eaten the parson’s dinner, knowing that there will be no repercussions because in their world he has no power.[20]
‘Squeaker’s Mate’ is a story where good deeds reap ill will. Squeaker’s mate does most of the work and never complains of her partner’s shortcomings. When she is crippled, however, Squeaker’s main concern is that he will now have to do all of the work. His initial anxiety soon deepens into resentment, and he channels this into verbal abuse, taunting his mate to ‘double up yer ole broke back an’ bite yerself.’[21] He sells her sheep and uses the profits to buy new boots for himself.[22] As a final insult, he brings home a ‘new mate’ from the nearby township and threatens to kill his ‘old’ mate if she makes any trouble for him.[23]
Perhaps the attitudes of Baynton’s characters are a direct derivation of the bush landscape in which they make their habitat. As in Lawson’s stories, Baynton’s bush is oftenmost a bleak and desolate wasteland where even the hardiest of swagmen might lose hope. However, Lawson employs a quiet, occasionally bitter, often wry humour that counterbalances this depressing setting and alleviates, in part, the suffering of those who populate it. By comparison, humour of any kind is conspicuously absent in Bush Studies. ‘A Dreamer’ describes the ‘straggling street of the township’ complete with an ‘ownerless dog’, where the only thriving business appears to be the local mortuary.[24] In ‘Scrammy ’And’, Baynton paints a sweeping picture of a vast and lonely plain dominated by a ‘great silence’.[25] ‘The Chosen Vessel’ introduces yet another ‘dismal, drunken little township’; the grimmest depiction, however, lies in the drought-stricken setting of ‘Billy Skywonkie’, with its ‘tireless, greedy sun’, thirsty dying animals and an overall impression of an awful, careworn patience.[26] The line ‘Gaping cracks suggested yawning graves’ adds a hellish element to the sun-parched plains.[27]
Amidst this prevalent despair, there is one recurring theme in Baynton’s work that conveys hope: the power of motherhood. In ‘A Dreamer’, the female main character is with child, and braves a furious storm (including risking her life to cross an overflowing creek) to get home to her mother. Against the raging elements of rain and wind and lightning, the talisman of her mother’s love proves stronger.[28] Of course, there are no happy endings in Baynton’s bush – the woman arrives home and finds that her mother is dead – but she still carries the promise of new life within her, which provides a certain optimism if the reader allows it.[29] In ‘The Chosen Vessel’, the power of motherhood is so strong that it prevails even beyond death; the boundary rider, who discovers the corpse of the murdered mother together with her still-alive infant, is forced ‘to cut its [the child’s] gown that the dead hand held.’[30]
Overall, Barbara Baynton has delivered a dark and malevolent version of the Australian bush, and of human nature itself. While she successfully draws attention to the undoubtedly real hardships that early Australians endured, particularly in such an inhospitable environment, she lacks the iconic humour that is the saving grace of Lawson’s stories. The most unique and sophisticated element of Baynton’s work is the Gothic quality that pervades several of her stories; it is quite unlike any other author’s work of that time period, and cements her a definitive place in Australian literature.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Krimmer, Sally and Lawson, Alan (eds.). Barbara Baynton. St. Lucia: University of Queensland,
1980.
[1] B. Baynton, ‘A Dreamer’ in S. Krimmer and A. Lawson (eds.), Barbara Baynton (St. Lucia: University of
Queensland, 1980), p. 5
[2] Baynton, ‘A Dreamer’, p. 6
[3] Baynton, ‘The Chosen Vessel’, p. 87
[4] Baynton, ‘The Chosen Vessel’, p. 85
[5] Baynton, ‘Billy Skywonkie’, p. 51
[6] Baynton, ‘Billy Skywonkie’, p. 56
[7] Baynton, ‘Billy Skywonkie’, p. 53
[8] Baynton, ‘Billy Skywonkie’, p. 58
[9] Baynton, ‘Billy Skywonkie’, p. 59
[10] Baynton, ‘Bush Church’, p. 68
[11] Baynton, ‘Billy Skywonkie’, p. 57
[12] Baynton, ‘Squeaker’s Mate’, p. 12
[13] Baynton, ‘Squeaker’s Mate’, p. 26
[14] Baynton, ‘The Chosen Vessel’, p. 88
[15] Baynton, ‘Scrammy ’And’, p. 29
[16] Baynton, ‘Scrammy ’And’, p. 45
[17] Baynton, ‘Bush Church’, p. 61
[18] Baynton, ‘Bush Church’, p. 62
[19] Baynton, ‘Bush Church’, p. 77
[20] Baynton, ‘Bush Church’, p. 80
[21] Baynton, ‘Squeaker’s Mate’, p. 17
[22] Baynton, ‘Squeaker’s Mate’, p. 18
[23] Baynton, ‘Squeaker’s Mate’, p. 19
[24] Baynton, ‘A Dreamer’, p. 4-5
[25] Baynton, ‘Scrammy ’And’, p. 28
[26] Baynton, ‘Billy Skywonkie’, p. 46-47
[27] Baynton, ‘Billy Skywonkie’, p. 55
[28] Baynton, ‘A Dreamer’, p. 5
[29] Baynton, ‘A Dreamer’, p. 10
[30] Baynton, ‘The Chosen Vessel’, p. 85
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