A. B. Facey's Relation To The Typical Australian

A. B. Facey's Relation to the "Typical Australian"

By Christopher Bell

Australia has had many national identities in its existence; the most noticeable of these being the Bush discourse, the battler discourse, the Convict discourse and the Larrikin discourse. Russel Ward utilises these discourses in his book, "The Australian Legend". He explains that the typical Australian is a practical man, tough who drinks heavily. A. B. Facey is a classic example of a typical Australian, although he does not fit in with all of the aspects of Ward's construction.

The convict discourse, Australia's first image, was christened by the first fleet, which consisted of incredibly hard-hitting men, who came from Britain in 1788. Britain was no longer allowed to ship convicts from Britain to the American Colonies, forcing her to find a new land to use. Australia. The convict discourse consisted, like most of Australia's identities, of the dominant man, strong, practical and entirely anti-British, holding absolutely no respect for the crown. After the British government became aware of the reputation of Australia, she began offering free land to settlers who wished to take up residence in Australia. This was designed as a bribe to create a more pro-government settlement.

During the 19th century, the representation of Australia began to change. Poets such as Banjo Patterson created this new image, through poems such as "The Man From Snowy River", creating the image of the bush. In addition to the bush discourse and the convict discourse Australia had the military discourse, which overlapped with the convict discourse in the Boer War, leading to Breaker Morant, an Australian Soldier being executed. During WWI, the images of the typical Australian began to change yet again. After WWI, the larrikin image dominated. This new image was due to the Australian soldiers, who did not welcome operating under the command of the British officers, and often disobeyed their orders.

Russel Ward, the author of "The Australian Legend" derives his idea of the typical Australian identity from both the convict and the bush discourses. From the convict discourse comes the larrikin image which is represented in Ward's discourse as the typical Australian being Tough and "Normally feels no impulse to work hard without good cause" (Ward, 1958 in Miller & Colwill, 1998, pg. 22 hereinafter referred to as Ward). The strong and "willing to have a go" aspects of his discourse come from the bush discourse, a discourse that represents personalities like A. B. Facey.

The autobiography, "A Fortunate Life", describes A. B. Facey's life from beginning to end. From the beginning of the book, it is clear that Facey endures a lot of grief and pain in his life, yet Facey always manages to pull through and find the bright side of it, hence the ironic name, "A Fortunate Life". Facey, in his autobiography, shifts from place to place all through his life from the age of two when his mother deserts him, to the age of 66, where he is cheated out of ownership of his farm and is a classic example of the "rolling stone" as stated by Ward.

Ward addresses many issues in his book, "The Australian Legend",