The Hollow Woodpile Symbol Analysis

Before the action of the story begins, readers learn that the bushwoman has paid an Aboriginal man to build her a woodpile, and he does it so quickly that she pays him “an extra fig of tobacco.” However, the bushwoman discovers that this pile has been built hollow when she attempts to remove a piece of wood from it toward the end of the story. As such, the woodpile represents the lack of trust that the white settlers in the bush feel toward Aboriginal people. This symbolism exists in both the circumstances of the creation of the woodpile (it is a physical item that is built by means of an act of trickery) and in its physical form (it is hollow, and hollowness symbolically represents lack of authenticity—as in a “hollow promise” or “hollow friendship”—as its appealing outer appearance belies the lack of contents inside). This, in turn, reflects racist attitudes at the time of Lawson’s writing towards the indigenous Australians being displaced by white settlers like the bushwoman herself.