How the Distinctively Visual Provokes a Response

In order to gain a greater understanding of a landscape, a character or an event a composer will use techniques specific to their media to create a vivid image for their audience. This is an image that stays with them throughout the text and successfully creates an atmosphere for the environment, persona or occurrence.
The distinctively visual has been successfully created within In a dry season. Lawson employs metonym to convey the innocence of the newcomers in juxtaposed with a dishevelled and unfashionable group conveyed with the use of alliteration, verbs and further metonymy to convey a dishevelled and unfashionable group.
Lawson develops a detailed image of the freshness and naivety of the young travellers through reference to their freshly cut hair and starched collars in “One or two square-cuts and stand-up collars struggle dismally through to the bitter end”. The use of metonymy allows the audience to immediately associate the hair cut and stiff collars to a group innocent to the harshness of the bush.
This is contrasted to the unkempt, slovenly appearance of the Bushmen has been evoked in this short story. This tousled exterior has been effectively created with the recurring “s” in “Slop, sac, suits, red face and old fashioned flat brimmed hats”. The repetition of the sound allows Lawson to convey the tedium of bush life and the Bushmen’s fatigue to the reader.
As the Bushmen “...drop into the train on the other side of Bathurst...” Lawson conveys a sense of exhaustion. This response is evoked as the reader can visualise the way in which the people fell into the train. The distinctively visual is induced by the verb and the audience can visualize the country and characters becoming more dishevelled as the train progresses toward Bourke.
A distinctive image of a group of ragged men is powerfully stimulated as Lawson makes effective use of metonym. Lawson writes of “Slop, sac, suits, red faces and old fashioned flat brimmed hats” and the...