ISBN: 9780732297039

Notes by: Sarah McCleary

Contents

Introduction

About the author/illustrator

Author/illustrator inspiration

Study notes on themes and curriculum topics:

The Battlers would be a suitable text to study in the English classroom in a study of themes such as

friendship, loyalty, hardship, the Australian Spirit, journey. The novel is a means of enhancing

students’ understanding of the ways in which particular literary techniques (particularly language

choice, ‘voice’, characterisation, dialogue, and perspective) are used to develop meaning within a

text, and can be a catalyst for their own creation and evaluation. In a History Classroom, The

Battlers would be useful as part of an overview of the Interwar Period in Australia, and the varying

experiences of Australians within this time. The novel can be used to develop historical vocabulary,

an idea of chronology and differing perspective, as well as offering the potential to evaluate sources

for their usefulness and reliability.

Questions for reading and discussion

Bibliography

About the author of the notes

Introduction

The Battlers is a narrative of the hardships endured by a population often overlooked in Australian

History – the wandering mass of unemployed during the 1930s. Set against the national backdrop of

Depression, in the lead up to the Second World War, we follow Snow, Dancy, the Busker, Miss Phipps,

and their community of battlers from dole collection to dole collection, poorly paid menial job to poorly

paid menial job. Their story is woven together with compassion and humanity, and we cannot help but

like their tenacity and spirit.

About the author/illustrator

Kylie Tennant was a prolific Australian author of the Twentieth Century, writing novels, plays, children’s

books, and histories. Her approach to research and writing was renowned for its attention to detail.

Before writing The Battlers, Tennant took to the track with the unemployed, living and suffering as they

did, and as a result, her writing is honest, realistic, and compassionate. The Battlers has been compared

to John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, and Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, and was awarded the SH Prior

Memorial Prize in 1940, and the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal in 1941.

To see Kylie Tennant speaking briefly about her research methods:

http://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/kylie-tennant/clip2/

For more biographical information:

https://sites.google.com/a/ozlitguide.com/www/Home/ch-30-Kylie-Tennant

Study notes on themes and curriculum topics

English Learning Outcomes

Students will have the opportunity to:

• Understand that standard Australian English in its spoken and written forms has a

history of evolution and change and continues to evolve

• Understand how language can have inclusive and exclusive social effects, and can

empower and disempower people

• Evaluate the social, moral and ethical positions represented in texts

• Identify, explain and discuss how narrative viewpoint, structure, characterization

and devices shape different interpretations and responses

• Compare and evaluate how “voice” as a literary device can be used in a range of

different texts to evoke emotional responses

• Create imaginative texts that make relevant thematic and intertextual connections

with other texts

• Analyse and evaluate how people, cultures, places, events, objects and concepts

are represented in texts through language and structural choices

• Identify and analyse implicit and explicit values, beliefs, and assumptions in texts

and how these are influenced by purpose and audience.

Before you read The Battlers

As a class, discuss the title of the novel. What is a battler?

Deconstruct the cover of the novel (paying particular attention to the conventions of visual texts):

- What connotations do we associate with the colour purple? Does this shade remind us

of anything in particular?

- What is the image (Paterson’s Curse), and what does it represent?

- What does the composition of the cover suggest? Consider size and placement.

Activity: Read the following passage from the novel which describes a battler:

His eyes under an old felt hat are sharp pinpoints in a network of glare-wrinkles. He is bitter

against society, but unswervingly loyal to his mates; dull and suspicious at any hint of patronage,

but talkative and shrewd enough to his equals; at enmity with all police, but courteous to

strangers; passionately generous and open-handed; a liar when it suits him, and a trusty friend.

A man able to walk along the knifeedge of starvation and make a joke of it.

(The Battlers, p.34)

Discuss the attributes of a battler:

- Is the portrayal positive, negative, or neutral? Find specific words to support your ideas

- Does this description remind you of anyone you know, or any character you have come

across before?

Context

The Battlers is concerned with a motley crew of itinerant workers drifting along the tracks across

Australia so heavily trodden by the unemployed masses during the 1930s. Tennant, in the name of

thorough research, took to the road in 1938, fully immersing herself in the hardship faced by this social

group.

Homework task: research an aspect of the context of the novel, make a list of three things that you think

are the most important or interesting to share with the class.

Aspects of context could include:

- Author

- Reception of the book

- Historical events of the time

- Social events of the time

- Economic events of the time

- National Political events of the time

- International Political events of the time

Characterisation

Kylie Tennant’s style of writing is propelled by detailed description and dialogue. In the first two

chapters of the novel we are introduced to the four main characters – Snow, Dancy, Duke and Miss

Phipps. Discuss the ways in which the characters are enlivened through description.

Activity: divide the class into four groups, with each group focusing on one character. On a piece of

cardboard, create a character sketch of the character (this could either be visual or written) focusing on

what we know about them so far to display in the classroom. This should include both aspects of both

the physical descriptions (appearance, clothing, posture, expressions) and personality descriptions

(thoughts, fears, behaviours, relationships, the way they speak). Strengthen your understanding with

direct quotes from the texts.

Activity: write a diary entry (for the purpose of this, overlook the fact that some of the characters are

illiterate) from the perspective of a character of your choice, focusing on maintaining their “voice”

through the piece. Be prepared to read this to the class, who will guess which character’s perspective

you have written. Alternatively, you could write and record a monologue from the perspective of a

character using a website like Voicethread.

Language

The language of the novel is rich with dialogue and elements of vernacular and profanity, both of which

act to establish the period in which the novel is set, and the class of the characters.

Activity: have a student volunteer to read this passage aloud to highlight the way Tennant has

constructed her dialogue to reflect the characters and context of the novel:

‘I fought it was a ghost.’ She shuddered. ‘I got thinking of the time Dad come ’ome. Walked out

of the asylum ’e did, wiv a coat over his asylum cloves. He come ’ome to the residential where

Mum was stayin’ wiv me and the other kids. I was twelve. He come home on the Friday, and

Saturday afternoon, when we was at the pi’tures, he cut her throat, and then he cut his own

throat afterwards. The landlady made me go in wiv a mop and a bucket and clean up the floor.

Bled to death he had, all over it. And me wringin’ out the mop wiv me own farver’s blood on it.

The landlady said they was my parents and I had to do it.’ Dancy, page 6

As a class, discuss the choices Tennant has made in her writing, and what they suggest about Dancy as a

character (focus on spelling, punctuation, language choices, and sentence structure). Students could

then rewrite the passage in standard English to show their understanding of the way language develops,

and the way language can be manipulated to create meaning.

Homework Activity on word meaning.

Music

Because of the Busker, Duke, music features regularly in the novel. Discuss the role music has (both

within the novel, and in broader terms) to bring people together, and to distract from the situation.

‘There’s a bloody song I always wanted to hear, and I never knew its bloody name,’ he said

pleasantly.

‘Please!’ Miss Phipps rose from her seat in the corner. ‘Stop that foul language.’

Snow looked injured. ‘What bloody foul language?’ he asked.

‘She’s not responsible,’ the busker said consolingly.

‘Oh!’ Snow was mollified. ‘Well, this (adjective) song was about an (adjectival) bagman who was

getting himself a bit of meat …’

The busker nodded somewhat contemptuously. ‘Waltzing

Matilda, the Australian National Anthem. The dogs bark it.’

‘You know it?’

‘Of course, I know it.’ (The Battlers, p.18)

Activity: play ‘Waltzing Matilda’ and ‘The Overlanders’, two Australian folk-songs that are mentioned in

the novel. Discuss the themes of the songs, and how this relates to the text. Why would songs such as

these be popular among the Battlers? How is Waltzing Matilda used today?

(If you or a class-member can play guitar, here are links to the tabs of ‘Waltzing Matilda’ and ‘The

Overlanders’:

http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/b/banjo_paterson/waltzing_matilda_ver6_crd.htm

http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/m/misc_traditional/the_overlanders_tab.htm )

Setting

The harsh Australian landscape is the backdrop for the novel, reflecting and justifying the difficulties

faced by the characters, who for most of the novel are at the mercy of nature. The battlers themselves

have learnt to contend with the environment, and the landscape comes to mirror the emotions of the

characters, at times listless, at times frantic.

Activity: as a class, discuss the language in the following passage, paying particular attention to the way

language is used to create a sense of place.

The unsettling thing about the flood was its movement. The old landmarks—trees and windmills

and houses—were still there; but between them, the land, seditiously mingling its red-yellow

with the alien flood, had got up and was rolling away.

The warden fences, that had laid their wire knouts across the backs of the fields, were drowned;

lucerne stacks floated on the current as carefree as icebergs, masterless and anonymous. It was

landscape reverted to anarchy; and the town, isolated on its eminence, had the look of a

fortress taken by surprise. The spirit of defiance and lawlessness, instigated by the mutiny of so

much mud, spread imperceptibly to the human beings. Small boys took a delight in pushing off

such lucerne stacks as stranded on the shore, so that the full stream should bear them away and

submerge them. Nothing, if they could help it, would be salvaged, unless it was edible or loot.

They waited hopefully for hours to pounce on someone’s property, but nothing valuable came

floating by. (The Battlers, p.146)

• Underline the verbs and adverbs in the passage – how do these contribute to the overall

tone?

• How is the landscape described?

• Find examples of personification and metaphor - what is the effect of this figurative

language?

Activity: write a description of a place (it could be a place that is familiar or foreign, urban or rural)

focusing on using language in the same way that Tennant does - to encapsulate the mood of the place.

Try to use figurative language and strong verbs and adverbs to develop this description. Pay attention to

the tone you want to create throughout the piece.

Gender

The representation of gender in The Battlers is somewhat concerning to contemporary readers. The

female characters of The Battlers are at times treated like chattels, married off to men for economic

favours. They are the target of lewd advances from the drunken, desperate men on the track. That being

said, the novel is not so much a commentary on gender as it is on class – both men and women suffer

equally in the underprivileged world of the novel.

Activity: divide the class into groups (if the class is co-educational it may be interesting to divide the

groups by gender if practical), assign each group a gender to consider. As a group, students should make

a list of adjectives and phrases, including direct quotes from the text that best represent the specific

gender within the novel. As a class, compile a list of these gender-based ideas, discussing any ideas that

crop up more than once, or any that are in stark contrast. Reiterate the importance of perspective in

reading and understanding texts.

Tasks

Design a new cover for the novel focusing on the theme that you consider essential to The Battlers,

using techniques of visual texts to convey meaning. You should consider:

• Symbolic images

• Colour

• Placement

• Language

Write a rational explaining the techniques you have used, your stylistic choices, and the meaning

conveyed.

Appropriate an aspect or theme of the novel into your own creative narrative, these could include:

• Friendship

• Loyalty

• Poverty

• A journey

• A natural disaster

• A family feud

In your creative piece you should try to use some of the language techniques that we have discussed as

a class.

History Activities

Key Concepts: Continuity and Change, Cause and Effect, Perspectives, Contestability.

Historical Skills: chronology, historical terms and concepts, identifying sources, analyising sources,

evaluating usefulness and reliability.

The Battlers could be used in a History classroom to enhance understanding of differing Australian

experiences of the 1930s.

Activity: plot the path of the novel on an Australian map, remembering that most of the characters

travelled by horse or foot.

Activity: construct a timeline of the Interwar years focusing on events mentioned in the novel, as well as

significant national and international events (Great Depression, Nazism, rise of trade Unionism, etc).

Activity: interview someone you know who was alive, or knew someone who was alive, in the 1930s

(this could be a grandparent, or a neighbour, or a family friend) – what was their experience? Is it similar

or dissimilar to that of the novel?

Discuss the elements of life in the 1930s that the novel reveals, particularly about this underprivileged

class of people. Consider currency, economic hardship, ration cards, the impact of international affairs

on Australian life. Does the book portray an accurate version of the 1930s?

Research the author of the book – how does her personal context (gender, the period in which she was

writing, experiences, political ideas) shape our understanding of the text?

Discuss the usefulness and reliability of a passage from the text as an historical source. Can the novel be

considered a useful source given that it is fictional? Does the fact that it is fictional affect its reliability as

a source? With what purpose did Tennant write the novel?

For more information about the Great Depression and its impact on Australian Life:

http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/great-depression

Questions for reading and discussion

• What is the “Australian Spirit”? Does The Battlers reflect this spirit?

• How important are relationships within the novel? Focus on one relationship in your

response (this could be between Dancy and Snow, Snow and his son, Dancy and Duke,

or any characters of your choosing).

• What role does music play within the novel, and within the collective memory of

Australians?

• Throughout the novel international events are mentioned (most significantly, the

imminent war in Europe) – does the international sphere impact the world of the novel?

Justify your response.

• Is religion important within the novel?

• The Battlers focuses on an underprivileged class of people. How are those of higher

social classes depicted (farmers, policemen, shopkeepers, etc). Does the novel act to

subvert our ideas of class and privilege?

• How important is the setting of the novel?

• What is the effect of dialogue within the novel?

• Are morality and ethics fostered within the novel? Is there a difference between acting

morally and acting lawfully?

• Does The Battlers resonate with a modern audience, or is it a period of its time?

HOMEWORK ACTIVITY: Match these vernacular words from the novel with their meanings

Tucker-box A horse-drawn vehicle

Hobgoblin An inexpensive bag

Cockies A container for food

Earn a crust “Is that so?”

Gunny sack Farmer

Quid Make a living

Cock-and-bull A mischievous imp or sprite

Sulky Man or boy

“Thasso?” Ridiculous or unbelievable

Chap One Pound

HOMEWORK ACTIVITY ANSWERS

Tucker-box A container for food

Hobgoblin A mischievous imp or sprite

Cockies Farmers

Earn a crust Make a living

Gunny sack An inexpensive bag

Quid One Pound

Cock-and-bull Ridiculous or unbelievable

Sulky A horse-drawn vehicle

“Thasso?” “Is that so?”

Chap Man or boy

Bibliography

ACARA Learning outcomes for English and History retrieved from:

http://www.acara.edu.au/curriculum.html

The Australian Government, The Great Depression, retrieved from:

http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/great-depression

Barnes, Sophia, The Battlers by Kylie Tennant: 366 Days of Writing, retrieved from:

http://www.nswwc.org.au/2012/04/battlers-by-kylie-tennant-366-days-of-writing/

Guitar tabs from Ultimate guitar, retrieved from:

http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/b/banjo_paterson/waltzing_matilda_ver6_crd.htm

http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/m/misc_traditional/the_overlanders_tab.htm

National Film & Sound Archive, Kylie Tennant, curated by Adrienne Parr, 1986, retrieved from:

http://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/kylie-tennant/clip2/

Sigley, Thomas, Chapter 30, Kylie Tennant (1912-1988), OzLit Guide, retrieved from:

https://sites.google.com/a/ozlitguide.com/www/Home/ch-30-Kylie-Tennant

About the author of the notes

You may insert a bio of no more than 150 words.