The presentation of women and the bush environment in The Drover's Wife and Squeaker's Mate
             Henry Lawson's The Drover's Wife and Barbara Baynton's Squeaker's Mate provide a reflection of the privations and hassles that women of the bush are subjected to suffer. The lack of personal identity in both these Australian women is verified by merely the titles of both these short stories, where the women are seen as nothing more than a companion to male, being simply named "wife" or "mate". Both Bayton and Lawson underline loneliness isolation. Baynton, more so than Lawson, emphasises the particular issue of lack of individuality. The women are depicted as victims of the harsh and merciless bush.
             In both stories, both authors went to lengths to carefully describe the trueness of the Australian bush environment. Baynton testifies to this dreary monotony by describing the bush as a flat "plain that met the horizon" (pg 15), a bleak and desolate environment made all the more oppressive by the "pregnant bush silence." (pg 9) The lack of distinctiveness of the bush enables us to draw parallels with the lack of individuality of the bush women; the "stunted trees" reminiscent of the "stunted" identity of the women themselves. Lawson presents a vivid delineation of the monotony of the landscape, stating that there is nothing but "bush all around-bush with no horizon." (pg 67) This forceful repetition of "bush" gives us the impression that everything is indeed surrounded by the bush, encircled by the "everlasting, maddening sameness of the stunted trees." (pg 72) The sibilant 's' in the sentence weaves together like an unbreakable thread, not only reminding us of the monotonous continuity of the bush, but also enabling us to hear the underlying frustration.
             The role of women in the bush further illustrates the fa...