Shooting the Moon

First Thoughts
What are your initial thoughts on the story? What
themes are present?

What overarching perspective of Australia’s culture

is being illuminated in the text?

Give ONE example of where this shines through/

scene and quotes to support this.

Does this idea of Australian culture still resonate in

today’s society? If so, where? Examples..?

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 Overview of Story

In Shooting the Moon by Henry Lawson we have the theme of friendship, identity, struggle, pride, perseverance and connection. Taken from

his While the Billy Boils collection the story is narrated in the first person by an unnamed narrator and after reading the story the reader

realises that Lawson may be exploring the theme of friendship. Despite trying to evade the Landlord. Jack and the Landlord become friends.

As too does Tom become friends with Jack. Despite the fact that Jack cannot recall what Tom’s surname may have been. Even though they

travelled the bush for ten years together. This may be significant as identity may not necessarily be important to Jack. Once a man was good

to him. Generally speaking Jack was good to them. He doesn’t appear to have asked any of his friends about their background. As if it

mattered to him. Rather he accepted a person on face value and was unconcerned about their past. Which may be the point that Lawson is

attempting to make. He may be suggesting that those who made their living as swagmen. Though they might have had a previous undesirable

past. This did not necessarily effect their relationship with another swagman. If anything Lawson may be suggesting that everybody regardless

of their occupation or class. Has something to hide.

McManus, Dermot. "Shooting the Moon by Henry Lawson." The Sitting Bee. The Sitting Bee, 25 Mar. 2019. Web.
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 Background

Henry Lawson’s short story ‘Shooting the Moon’ was

published in an anthology of Lawson’s stories in 1896,
entitled ‘While the Billy Boils.’

Literary critics have speculated that Lawson’s protagonist

John ‘Jack’ Mitchell represents Henry Lawson himself.
Mitchell is often portrayed in Lawson’s stories as the
instigator of an embedded ‘yarn’ with Lawson being the
ultimate real-life story teller.

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 What should you be looking at

● Look at how Lawson created people out of words - Describe the characters and
support this description with quotes.
● What ideas were ‘behind’ that creation?
● How does the text inform or influence our individual and collective identity?
● How does it affirm, ignore, challenge, reveal and disrupt what you believe
about yourself as an Australian or about groups in Australian society?

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 First Person Perspective
‘Shooting the Moon’ is narrated from first
person perspective. An unnamed persona is
travelling with Jack Mitchell and they make
camp for the night on the edge of a plain
fringed by mulga. Both men smoke tobacco
and relax after a long day on the track.
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Lawson frequently uses a first-person trigger-narrator, or gram
narrator, as a way of setting up a scenario in which a character
has someone they can yarn to. This sets up an interlocutor for
Jack Mitchell to tell stories from his past. Mitchell tells a yarn
while his companion tries to interject with humorous quips – the
inference is that the companion is younger. Mitchell narrates an
unsuccessful ‘moonlight flit’ from a pub where he not only
befriends another ‘bushie’ Tom, but they are also ironically
forgiven and helped by a benign publican.
 “
Highlight the words in the story that is uniquely
Australian. Highlight words that you do not know the
meaning of and find the definitions. (Hint: on the
website)

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A FAMILIAR LANDSCAPE?

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Jack Mitchell
Protagonist, Jack Mitchell also appears in ‘Our Pipes,’ another
short story set for study in Standard English Module A:
‘Language, Identity and Culture.’

John Barnes in his Introduction to The Penguin Henry Lawson

Short Stories (1986) describes Jack Mitchell as a ‘shrewd,
kindly and philosophical swagman… Mitchell is on the track, a
man on his own except when he finds a mate to travel with.’

From various stories, Lawson describes Mitchell as:

· Self-assertive

· Diplomatic

Other Lawson stories featuring Mitchell depict him as

charismatic, gruffly romantic, talkative, benignly manipulative,
humorous, easy-going and laconic.

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Read Into English The Swagman and Australian Culture Handout

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The Swagman

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For Russel Ward (1966, p. 3), who in the 1950s published The Australian Legend, an influential study on the origins of Australian identity, the
itinerant seasonal workers who wandered back and forth outback villages, rural properties and coastal towns had an important role in
mythicising the figure of the bushman. These workers’ semi-nomadic lifestyle contributed to the spreading of stories, “yarns”, bush ballads and
popular poetry in which bushmen appeared as protagonists and heroes. In the “Australian tradition”, the bushman was tenacious, adaptable and
skilled at facing the huge distances, dryness and loneliness of the Australian back lands. He was, thus, deemed superior to urban dwellers, becoming
a symbol of Australianness, even though historically Australia has always been an urban society, with most of its population clustering around a few
big cities, all located on the coast. Gregariousness was an important factor for bush travellers and rural workers in 19th century Australia, as
journeying the outback unaccompanied or being left alone on isolated farms for a long period of time might pose a threat to one’s physical health
and mental sanity. One way of avoiding those perils was forming “a bond between equal partners” (The Australian National Dictionary apud
MOORE, 2008, xv, p. 104), or a “mode of pure masculine camaraderie” (GOODALL, 1995, p.88) known as “mateship”. Lawson’s “A Love Story”
shows one of the most sentimental aspects of mateship in action: bush workers sharing a story (or “spinning a yarn” in Australian colloquial
language) around a campfire. The ability to share is one of the main tenets of mateship. Ward’s definition of a mate was someone with whom a man
could share “money, goods, and even secret aspirations and for whom even when in the wrong, he was prepared to make

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Smoking

The act of smoking pipes is both a

male bonding tool and a timing device.
Smoking paces the conversation
between Jack Mitchell and the narrator
as their languid manner of smoking
mirrors their slow and drifting
conversation.

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 Creative Activity

● Through dialogue, write the conversation between Tom and the other man
who slandered the publican. You should use appropriate register, including
colloquialisms from the original text of “Shooting the Moon” to recreate
Henry Lawson’s distinctive use of language.

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