Aussie Battler Representation: A Comparison of Two Australian Works

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This essay provides a comparative analysis of the Aussie Battler concept as represented in Tim Winton's short story, 'The Turning,' and an Australian documentary. The essay focuses on three key qualities: determination, compassion, and diligence, illustrating how these traits are exemplified by the protagonists in both works. It examines the experiences of Raylean, a working-class woman facing domestic violence, and Dinesh Palipana, who overcame a life-altering accident. The essay also connects these representations to contemporary Australian events, such as bushfires and societal issues, and includes statistical data on domestic violence. The essay defines the author's interpretation of the Aussie Battler and evaluates the relevance of this concept in modern Australian society. The author uses aesthetic devices, quotes, and evidence from both the book and documentary to strengthen their arguments. Ultimately, the essay argues that both Raylean and Dinesh are examples of the Aussie Battler's resilience and strength.
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ARTICLE ON COMPARISON
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A study of comparison between a story namely, The Turning by Tim Winton and an
Australian documentary entitled as The Man in Bed is going to blend into a good recipe of
penetrating the core of understanding what Aussie Battler is. This intends to focus mainly on
the aspects of Aussie Battler and how the protagonists of these two artworks reflect and
justify them to be so with their character traits through establishing their determination,
diligence and compassion. It is going to analyse how a specific class of people in Australia
has always been subjected to victimisation either of fate or of patriarchal society. Therefore,
seeking to find out the qualities provided in the article are the measuring factors to evaluate
the people to be Australians or not. This article is all about the story of the redemption of the
Aussie Battler through determination, diligence and compassion.
The article looks deeply into the special emphasis on how the book has been a perfect
example of a woman, namely Raylean belonging to a working-class who dwell in a place like
caravan park with her torturous and domineering husband Max and how the documentary is
the representative of a man from the same class meeting a fatal accident comes back to life all
over again (King et al., 2018).
When the readers are introduced with the character of Raylean, she is a mother of two
girls who are subjected to witness domestic violence on a daily basis without any fail. The
victim is not only Raylean who is sexually harassed by her violent husband every day but
also her daughters because they have no other opportunities to escape but to experience the
unbearable torture (McCredden, 2017). The woman was raped by her husband regularly and
she believed that it had no end to it; however, a family recently moved in at the
neighbourhood where Sherry became extremely close with Raylean and started sharing her
emotional baggage with Sherry. Sherry and Dan restored the faith on Jesus in Raylean that
helped her to understand and comprehend the worth of life. The belief and consideration of
God had elevated her to the way of her success. The compassion that this family bestowed
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upon her became so overpowering that she started believing in redemption similarly Dinesh
Palipapa meeting with the disastrous accident loses all hope and met with quadriplegic that
almost left him with frozen beliefs in him. Although he could not believe that he could do
anything after that yet with compassion that he could gather from everywhere helped him
gaining self-integrity that led him to achieve success in life. Compassion is a significant
human emotion that is really effective in human nature to inspire and encourage. A man who
has lost almost everything and has nothing in his hand to lose anymore can easily come back
to life with the help of compassion and sympathy. According to Australian National
University, a Battler is “the person with few natural advantages, who works doggedly and
with little reward, who struggles hard for a livelihood, and who displays enormous courage in
so doing.” The Aussie Battler being the dominated class of the Australian society is
remarkably known for their compassion, determination and meticulousness (Banwell et al.,
2018). Now the situations that have been mentioned both in the story and the documentary
were in the dearth of the extremeness of human affection. These situations need this kind of
compassionate associations to come about the misery that they had been dealing with.
Therefore implementing one of the strategies of Aussie Battler of keeping faith in humanity
and religion through compassion, these two characters were rejuvenated.
The Man in Bed is the showcasing of an Australian battler who had met an accident
that snatched away every hope of survival from him and Raylean can be considered to be
another Aussie Battler because both of them showed their will power and strong
determination to come back to life with normalcy like before. Aussie Battlers are known for
shining with their capacity no matter how suppressed they have been throughout their lives
(Swiatek & Brevini, 2018). Dinesh was completely devastated after the accident that is quite
obvious while after getting physically and morally tormented by Raylean’s husband, she was
completely broken and could not find any way to reach peace. However, following one of the
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traits of the Aussie Battler both of them determined to return to life with more power, dignity
and authority. They did not give up hope at any point. They fought with whatever sources
they had. Determination took Raylean to save her life along with her daughters’ and Dinesh
came back so strongly that he completed his graduation from Bond University in Medicine.
The strongest of will power made him believe in himself that he is pursuing himself as a
remarkable doctor in Sydney in the present time. It needs special attention towards the
characteristic element of the Aussie Battlers who are most familiar for their indomitable
willing power and determination that help them in uniting all their strengths to put into the
same place to come up with the best result out of them (Wehmeyer et al., 2017).
Determination, being one of the most highlighted features of the Aussie Battlers is clearly
evident in both the characters as mentioned in the book and the documentary. They knew that
there was no looking back after that stage of their respective lives. It is also stated by Clive
Hamilton in his Affluezna that “The Aussie battler is the central icon of Australian political
folklore, and the image persists despite the fact that, as a result of sustained economic growth
in the past five decades, the number of people who truly struggle has shrunk to a small
proportion of the population”. Therefore they believed that if they gave up at that point then
they had to stop living because there would be no strength left in them to fight for their rights.
Hence they applied their determination to cope up with the hardships, yet they took it as a
mere challenge like every other Aussie Battler and became triumphant at the end of it.
Although the Aussie Battler can be categorised as lower-class community people
from Australia yet it is the characteristics of them that they do not have be much educated or
do not have to belong to a sophisticated class to show empathy towards something that needs
attention (McEwan, 2017). They are naturally sensible and their lower class is never a
hindrance to that. Raylean met the turning point of her life when she met Sherry and Dan and
started to find out herself with the mirror they held in front of her. She understood the worth
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of her existence and the importance of Jesus in her life. She was completely unaware of
Christianity but her diligence towards the educating process of both Sherry and Dan drew her
so close to the religion that her life altered entirely and the turning point seemed to be
perfectly executed in her life. The same way Dinesh fought against his quadriplegic from
which coming back seems to be more difficult than landing on the Moon for a layperson.
However, he was stopped and restrained multiple times yet he did not stop at any point;
rather nothing could prevent him from moving forward with his diligence. He was so careful
and so willing to complete his studies that his complete investment in the field of his interest
led him to meet with success. By analysing all of the qualities, it can be understood that both
of them were not stuck in the same position and both of them existed in different times but
still they survived with the uniqueness of Aussie Battler.
There are still a huge number of women starting from the age of 15 are constantly
being victimised of the male-domineering society. Every one girl out of six are getting raped
and sexually molested and harassed in Australia almost every day (Thambo et al., 2019).
Women are not safe anywhere, and it is also an alarming fact that women are molested not on
the basis of their caste, colour and creed rather they are victimized on the basis of their
gender. This is wrong and unpardonable psychologically, ethically and legally. However,
working-class women are exposed to more atrocities in Australia leading them to commit
suicide in most of the cases. Apart from this burning issue, there are certain natural instances
that are threatening the lives of the Australians. Certain issues are there that cannot be fought
back with weapons or arm-force rather they have to be dealt with intellect, determination,
patience, compassion and assiduousness. These are the things that usually help in gaining
mental strength and fight against huge issues like a natural disaster or sexual assault of
women. The fire in Australian forest has almost devastated the lives of the Battlers however,
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the instances from the documentary and the movie show that they are unstoppable and will
surely fight for their right to come back to life (Dutta, Das & Aryal, 2016).
Therefore it can be concluded that both Raylean and Dinesh are just fragmented
representations of the whole Australian community called Aussie Battler. They are probably
some brightest examples of showcasing the characteristics of Aussie Battler because they
could not be suppressed at any moment of their lives even though they had been subjected to
immense physical and mental agony. The community is an instance of mental strength and
feasibility that they can go to any extent to achieve success no matter how much pain they are
going through every moment. They belong to the low class community but they are so strong
with their determination and diligence that they face every challenge and emerge as a winner
out of each of them.
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References
Banwell, C., Dixon, J., Bambrick, H., Edwards, F., & Kjellstrom, T. (2018). The
sociocultural context of climate change adaptation in Australia, with a focus on hot
weather. In Health of People, Places and Planet: Reflections based on AJ (Tony)
McMichael’s four decades of contribution to epidemiological understanding. ANU
Press.
Dutta, R., Das, A., & Aryal, J. (2016). Big data integration shows Australian bush-fire
frequency is increasing significantly. Royal Society open science, 3(2), 150241.
King, K. E., Schlichthorst, M., Spittal, M. J., Phelps, A., & Pirkis, J. (2018). Can a
documentary increase help-seeking intentions in men? A randomised controlled
trial. J Epidemiol Community Health, 72(1), 92-98.
McCredden, L. (2017). The Fiction of Tim Winton: Earthed and Sacred. Sydney University
Press.
McEwan, S. (2017). Nation of Shitposters: Ironic Engagement with the Facebook Posts of
Shannon Noll as Reconfiguration of an Australian National Identity. PLATFORM:
Journal of Media & Communication, 8(2).
Swiatek, L., & Brevini, B. (2018). Australia: The Perpetual Battler. In Transparency and
Funding of Public Service Media–Die deutsche Debatte im internationalen
Kontext (pp. 133-143). Springer VS, Wiesbaden.
Thambo, S., Tshifhumulo, R., Amaechi, K. O., & Mabale, D. (2019). Resilience in women-
strategies female students employ to deal with online sexual harassment. Journal of
Gender, Information and Development in Africa (JGIDA), 8(2), 91-117.
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Wehmeyer, M. L., Shogren, K. A., Little, T. D., & Lopez, S. J. (Eds.). (2017). Development
of self-determination through the life-course. Springer.
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