The Young Ladies’ Journal Symbol Analysis

The bushwoman enjoys reading the Young Ladies’ Journal, which contains fashion illustrations that she likes to look at, and, the reader must assume, depicts life in Australian cities and towns far from where the bushwoman is actually living. This magazine symbolizes the outside world in general, and specifically the social norms of that world, which still hold a strong appeal for the bushwoman despite being irrelevant to the life that the she is living. It is also significant that the bushwoman brings the magazine with her to read while staying up to keep watch for the snake, as it shows that she is consistently maintaining her connection with the human social world and not allowing her struggle against nature—even in the middle of an episode where she is being concretely threatened by it—to cause her to lose what makes her human.