“The Widower in the Country” by Les Murray: A Critical Analysis

Introduction: “The Widower in the Country” by Les Murray

“The Widower in the Country” by Les Murray first appeared in his 1965 debut collection The Ilex Tree, co-authored with Geoffrey Lehmann. The poem captures the bleak isolation and emotional numbness of a man adjusting to life after the loss of his wife. Through simple, repetitive rural routines—“I’ll get up soon, and leave my bed unmade” and “This afternoon, I’ll stand out on the hill / And watch my house away below”—Murray conveys how grief transforms daily tasks into empty rituals. The imagery of “Christmas paddocks aching in the heat” and “the screaming… only a possum skiing down / The iron roof” reinforces the loneliness and futility of the widower’s existence, where even natural sounds become ghostly reminders of absence. Its popularity rests on Murray’s ability to universalize personal grief within the broader context of the Australian landscape, blending stoic rural realism with deep emotional undercurrents. By pairing the stark monotony of farm life with the quiet devastation of bereavement, the poem resonates as both a portrait of individual sorrow and a broader reflection on solitude and survival.

Text: “The Widower in the Country” by Les Murray

“I’ll get up soon, and leave my bed unmade.
I’ll go outside and split off kindling wood,
From the yellow-box log that lies beside the gate,
And the sun will be high, for I get up late now.
I’ll drive my axe in the log and come back in
With my armful of wood, and pause to look across
The Christmas paddocks aching in the heat,
The windless trees, the nettles in the yard…
And then I’ll go in, boil water and make tea.

This afternoon, I’ll stand out on the hill
And watch my house away below, and how
The roof reflects the sun and makes my eyes
Water and close on bright webbed visions smeared
On the dark of my thoughts to dance and fade away,
Then the sun will move on, and I will simply watch,
Or work, or sleep. And evening will draw in.

Coming on dark, I’ll go home, light the lamp
And eat my corned-beef supper, sitting there
At the head of the table. Then I’ll go to bed.
Last night I thought I dreamt – but when I woke
The screaming was only a possum skiing down
The iron roof on little moonlit claws.”

Annotations: “The Widower in the Country” by Les Murray

Line	Annotation (Simple English Explanation)	Literary Devices
“I’ll get up soon, and leave my bed unmade.”	The speaker begins his day without care, showing his loneliness and lack of purpose after losing his wife.	Symbolism (unmade bed = disorder/absence of partner), Tone of resignation
“I’ll go outside and split off kindling wood,”	He fills his time with small rural chores to occupy his loneliness.	Imagery (physical activity), Routine motif
“From the yellow-box log that lies beside the gate,”	Specific detail of the Australian landscape; the yellow-box tree root emphasizes place and isolation.	Local colour imagery, Symbolism of barrier (gate = boundary between life and grief)
“And the sun will be high, for I get up late now.”	His late rising shows lack of motivation, energy, or reason to wake early.	Symbolism (sun = passage of time), Tone of lethargy
“I’ll drive my axe in the log and come back in”	Physical work substitutes for emotional emptiness; repetitive activity.	Metaphor (axe as outlet for grief), Repetition of routine
“With my armful of wood, and pause to look across”	Carrying wood is mechanical, but he pauses—showing his awareness of emptiness around him.	Symbolism (armful of wood = survival needs), Enjambment (continuity of thought)
“The Christmas paddocks aching in the heat,”	The dry, hot paddocks mirror his inner emptiness and grief.	Pathetic fallacy, Visual imagery, Personification (“aching”)
“The windless trees, the nettles in the yard…”	Stillness and nettles suggest neglect and lifelessness.	Symbolism (nettles = pain/harshness), Atmosphere of stagnation
“And then I’ll go in, boil water and make tea.”	Simple domestic acts highlight his solitude—no one to share tea with.	Banality of routine, Symbolism (tea = comfort, but hollow alone)
“This afternoon, I’ll stand out on the hill”	He looks at his home from afar, detached from it emotionally.	Spatial symbolism (hill = separation from home/life)
“And watch my house away below, and how”	Distance from house = emotional alienation; “away below” suggests detachment.	Symbolism, Tone of estrangement
“The roof reflects the sun and makes my eyes”	Harsh sunlight = physical discomfort, mirroring inner pain.	Imagery, Symbolism (roof’s reflection = blinding memories)
“Water and close on bright webbed visions smeared”	Tears come from sunlight, but metaphorically from grief; visions blur.	Metaphor (webbed visions = grief-induced hallucinations), Imagery
“On the dark of my thoughts to dance and fade away,”	His sad thoughts merge with blurred visions—memories of his wife fading.	Symbolism (dark thoughts = grief), Juxtaposition (bright/dark)
“Then the sun will move on, and I will simply watch,”	Time passes passively; he lacks purpose beyond watching.	Personification (sun moves), Tone of passivity
“Or work, or sleep. And evening will draw in.”	Empty repetition—no meaning in activities, just filling time until night.	Parallelism (“work, or sleep”), Personification (evening draws in)
“Coming on dark, I’ll go home, light the lamp”	Darkness comes, lamp light = small attempt to fight loneliness.	Symbolism (lamp = faint hope), Contrast of dark/light
“And eat my corned-beef supper, sitting there”	Eating alone highlights emptiness; simple food emphasizes bleak life.	Imagery, Tone of isolation
“At the head of the table. Then I’ll go to bed.”	Sitting at the “head” ironically underscores absence of family; authority is meaningless.	Irony, Symbolism (empty table)
“Last night I thought I dreamt – but when I woke”	Suggests disorientation—loneliness affects sleep and perception.	Ambiguity (dream vs. reality), Tone of confusion
“The screaming was only a possum skiing down”	His mind interprets animal sounds as something more dramatic—loneliness distorts reality.	Imagery, Simile/Metaphor (“skiing down”), Sound imagery
“The iron roof on little moonlit claws.”	The possum’s claws on tin roof break the silence, showing intrusion of wild life into lonely nights.	Onomatopoeia (claws), Visual imagery (moonlit claws), Symbolism (roof = boundary, fragile against intrusion)

Literary And Poetic Devices: “The Widower in the Country” by Les Murray

Literary Device	Example from Poem	Detailed Explanation
Alliteration ✦	“windless trees” (line 8)	The repetition of the “w” sound in “windless trees” emphasizes the stillness of the landscape, reinforcing the widower’s sense of isolation and stagnation in his environment. The sound mimics a soft, whispering breeze, contrasting the absence of wind.
Allusion ❖	“Christmas paddocks” (line 7)	The reference to “Christmas” alludes to the Australian summer, as Christmas occurs in December, a hot month in Australia. This situates the poem in a specific cultural and temporal context, highlighting the widower’s solitude during a typically festive season.
Assonance ❀	“kindling wood” (line 2)	The repetition of the short “i” sound in “kindling” and “wood” creates a sharp, crisp sound that mirrors the physical act of splitting wood. This auditory effect draws attention to the widower’s labor-intensive routine, grounding the poem in sensory detail.
Caesura ✿	“I’ll go outside and split off kindling wood,” (line 2)	The comma after “outside” creates a pause, mimicking the widower’s deliberate, slow pace as he moves from indoors to outdoors. This break in rhythm reflects the halting, reflective nature of his solitary life.
Consonance ★	“split off kindling wood” (line 2)	The repetition of the “d” sound in “kindling” and “wood” emphasizes the hard, physical effort of splitting wood. This consonance reinforces the tactile, laborious quality of the widower’s daily tasks, highlighting his methodical existence.
Contrast ☀	“The sun will be high, for I get up late now.” (line 4)	The contrast between the sun being “high” and the widower getting up “late” underscores his disconnection from a typical daily rhythm, suggesting a loss of purpose or motivation, likely due to his grief.
Enjambment ✸	“And the sun will be high, for I get up late now. / I’ll drive my axe in the log and come back in” (lines 4-5)	The sentence flows over the line break, mimicking the widower’s continuous, unbroken routine despite his emotional stagnation. This device reflects the relentless progression of time against his static existence.
Hyperbole ❁	“paddocks aching in the heat” (line 7)	Describing the paddocks as “aching” exaggerates the effect of the heat, personifying the landscape as suffering alongside the widower. This amplifies the oppressive atmosphere and mirrors his emotional pain.
Imagery ✽	“The Christmas paddocks aching in the heat, / The windless trees, the nettles in the yard…” (lines 7-8)	Vivid visual and sensory details paint a stark, desolate picture of the widower’s surroundings. The “aching” paddocks and “windless trees” evoke a sense of lifelessness, paralleling the widower’s emotional state.
Irony ☽	“Christmas paddocks” (line 7)	The mention of “Christmas” typically evokes joy and celebration, but in the poem, it is paired with a desolate, heat-stricken landscape, creating situational irony. This contrast highlights the widower’s loneliness during a time of communal festivity.
Juxtaposition ✺	“bright webbed visions smeared / On the dark of my thoughts” (lines 13-14)	The bright, reflective sunlight on the roof is juxtaposed with the “dark” thoughts of the widower, emphasizing the tension between the external world’s vibrancy and his internal grief, creating a poignant emotional contrast.
Metaphor ❂	“bright webbed visions smeared / On the dark of my thoughts” (lines 13-14)	The widower’s thoughts are metaphorically described as a “dark” canvas on which “bright webbed visions” are smeared, suggesting fleeting, distorted memories or hopes that intrude upon his pervasive sorrow, possibly alluding to his late spouse.
Mood ☾	Entire poem	The poem establishes a melancholic, introspective mood through descriptions of solitude, routine tasks, and a barren landscape. This mood reflects the widower’s grief and the emotional weight of his isolated existence.
Onomatopoeia ✻	“skiing down / The iron roof” (lines 21-22)	The word “skiing” mimics the sound and motion of the possum’s claws scraping across the iron roof. This auditory effect adds realism to the scene and startles the reader, much like the widower is startled from his dream.
Personification ❃	“paddocks aching in the heat” (line 7)	The paddocks are given human-like qualities, described as “aching,” which attributes emotional suffering to the landscape. This mirrors the widower’s own pain, creating a sense of shared desolation between him and his environment.
Repetition ✾	“I’ll go” (lines 2, 9, 16, 18)	The repeated phrase “I’ll go” emphasizes the widower’s monotonous routine, reinforcing the cyclical, unchanging nature of his days. It underscores his isolation and the lack of variation in his life.
Rhyme ❄	None explicit in poem	While the poem lacks a consistent rhyme scheme, subtle internal rhymes (e.g., “wood” and “stood” implied in rhythm) create a soft musicality. Murray avoids overt rhyme to maintain a conversational, reflective tone, fitting the widower’s somber mood.
Simile ✽	“screaming was only a possum skiing down” (line 21)	The possum’s noise is likened to “screaming” via simile, heightening the dramatic effect of the sound that disrupts the widower’s sleep. This comparison conveys the startling nature of the moment, contrasting the quiet of his life.
Symbolism ❇	“unmade” bed (line 1)	The “unmade” bed symbolizes the widower’s emotional disarray and the absence of his partner, who might have once shared the task of making the bed. It represents his lingering grief and lack of care for his surroundings.
Tone ❈	Entire poem	The tone is somber and reflective, conveyed through the widower’s slow, deliberate actions and the desolate imagery of his surroundings. This tone underscores his grief and the quiet resignation of his solitary life.

Themes: “The Widower in the Country” by Les Murray

🌅 Theme 1: Isolation and Loneliness
“The Widower in the Country” by Les Murray foregrounds the profound isolation of a man living alone after his wife’s death, where every act of daily survival echoes the silence of his solitude. From the opening line, “I’ll get up soon, and leave my bed unmade,” the absence of companionship is implied, as the unmade bed symbolizes not just disorder but also the absence of a partner who might once have shared or tended to it. The widower’s voice, quiet and restrained, amplifies the emptiness of his existence, where even basic actions such as making tea or eating “corned-beef supper, sitting there / At the head of the table” are stripped of warmth and human connection. Murray magnifies this loneliness by situating the widower in vast, depopulated spaces—he pauses to look across “the Christmas paddocks aching in the heat,” where the expanse of nature mirrors his emotional barrenness. In this way, Murray paints isolation not as an occasional condition but as the widower’s permanent reality, one that dominates every moment of his rural routine.

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🌾 Theme 2: The Monotony of Routine
“The Widower in the Country” by Les Murray underscores how grief can reduce human life to a cycle of mechanical tasks, repeated without joy or purpose. The widower’s day unfolds in predictable motions—splitting kindling wood, boiling water, standing on a hill, and eventually “light[ing] the lamp” at night—activities which serve not as fulfilling endeavors but as empty placeholders against the weight of silence. The title itself, with its emphasis on the widower’s rural setting, emphasizes the sense of repetitive labor inherent in country life, where work is necessary yet lacks the emotional depth it once had when shared. Murray crafts his imagery in a way that highlights this monotony: the widower neither anticipates nor reflects, but only “simply watch[es], / Or work, or sleep,” showing a life reduced to survival without vitality. This dull cycle reveals how grief flattens human experience, turning once meaningful habits into rituals of endurance.

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🔥 Theme 3: Grief and Emotional Numbness
“The Widower in the Country” by Les Murray conveys grief not through overt lament but through subdued emotional numbness, showing how loss can erode the vitality of both memory and imagination. When the widower looks at his house from afar, “The roof reflects the sun and makes my eyes / Water and close on bright webbed visions smeared / On the dark of my thoughts,” Murray suggests that memory and perception blur together, producing visions that quickly “dance and fade away.” This metaphor captures the fragility of recollection in grief, where memories of the deceased wife surface but cannot be sustained, leaving only darkness behind. Even the intrusion of nature at night—the “screaming” of a possum on the “iron roof”—is first mistaken for something haunting, before being reduced to a trivial sound, symbolizing how grief distorts and dulls experience. The widower does not articulate longing or tears directly; instead, his numbness is embedded in the plainness of his routine, where grief becomes a silent undertow rather than a dramatic outpouring.

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🌙 Theme 4: The Indifference of Nature and Time
“The Widower in the Country” by Les Murray situates human suffering against an indifferent natural backdrop, where time and environment move forward regardless of personal grief. The paddocks “aching in the heat,” the “windless trees,” and the slow passage of the sun create a setting in which the widower’s sorrow is dwarfed by the vast, unfeeling rhythms of the land. Nature does not provide solace; instead, it mirrors or even intensifies his despair, its harsh stillness echoing his emotional stasis. Likewise, time passes in a relentless sequence—morning, afternoon, evening, and night—yet nothing in his emotional life progresses, for “the sun will move on, and I will simply watch.” Murray captures a universal truth: grief exists within a temporal flow that refuses to pause, and while nature continues its cycles, the individual remains trapped in stagnation. In this contrast between human vulnerability and the indifference of natural time, the poem attains its haunting resonance, reminding us that survival does not necessarily equal healing.

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Literary Theories and “The Widower in the Country” by Les Murray

Literary Theory	References from Poem	Detailed Explanation
Formalism	“I’ll get up soon, and leave my bed unmade” (line 1), “The Christmas paddocks aching in the heat, / The windless trees, the nettles in the yard…” (lines 7-8), “bright webbed visions smeared / On the dark of my thoughts” (lines 13-14)	Formalism focuses on the poem’s structure, language, and literary devices rather than external contexts. In The Widower in the Country, Murray employs a free verse structure with deliberate enjambment and vivid imagery to mirror the widower’s monotonous yet emotionally charged routine. The repetition of “I’ll go” (lines 2, 9, 16, 18) creates a rhythmic cycle, reflecting the widower’s repetitive life. The metaphor of “bright webbed visions smeared / On the dark of my thoughts” uses contrasting imagery to convey inner turmoil, emphasizing the poem’s formal elements like assonance (“kindling wood”) and personification (“paddocks aching”) to evoke a somber tone without relying on external biographical or historical context.
Psychoanalytic Criticism	“bright webbed visions smeared / On the dark of my thoughts” (lines 13-14), “Last night I thought I dreamt – but when I woke / The screaming was only a possum skiing down” (lines 20-21), “unmade” bed (line 1)	Psychoanalytic criticism explores the widower’s subconscious and emotional state. The “unmade” bed symbolizes unresolved grief and the absence of his spouse, reflecting a repressed emotional disarray. The “dark of my thoughts” suggests a subconscious burdened by mourning, with “bright webbed visions” indicating fleeting memories or desires for his lost partner, possibly repressed due to pain. The possum’s “screaming” mistaken for a dream reveals a disrupted psyche, where external stimuli intrude upon his sleep, hinting at unresolved trauma or loneliness that manifests in his subconscious, aligning with Freudian concepts of repressed emotions surfacing indirectly.
Marxist Criticism	“I’ll go outside and split off kindling wood” (line 2), “eat my corned-beef supper, sitting there / At the head of the table” (lines 17-18), “yellow-box log that lies beside the gate” (line 3)	Marxist criticism examines class, labor, and economic conditions. The widower’s manual labor, such as splitting “kindling wood” and working with a “yellow-box log,” highlights his role as a working-class figure reliant on physical toil in a rural setting. His solitary “corned-beef supper” at the “head of the table” suggests a lack of communal support, reflecting alienation often associated with capitalist structures that isolate individuals. The poem subtly critiques the widower’s economic and social isolation, as his labor-intensive routine yields no apparent upward mobility or connection, emphasizing the proletariat’s struggle in a sparse, utilitarian existence.
Ecocriticism	“The Christmas paddocks aching in the heat, / The windless trees, the nettles in the yard…” (lines 7-8), “yellow-box log that lies beside the gate” (line 3), “screaming was only a possum skiing down” (line 21)	Ecocriticism analyzes the relationship between humans and the natural environment. The poem portrays the widower’s interaction with a harsh, heat-stricken Australian landscape, where “paddocks aching” and “windless trees” personify nature as suffering, mirroring the widower’s emotional desolation. The “yellow-box log” represents human exploitation of nature for survival, yet the widower’s minimal impact suggests a symbiotic, albeit melancholic, coexistence. The possum’s presence integrates wildlife into his solitary world, highlighting nature’s agency and its intrusion into human consciousness, reflecting an ecocritical view of interconnectedness between human grief and the environment.

Critical Questions about “The Widower in the Country” by Les Murray

❓ Question 1: How does Murray use routine to portray the psychological state of the widower?
“The Widower in the Country” by Les Murray employs the repetition of routine to dramatize the psychological emptiness of the widower’s existence, where survival is stripped of meaning. The speaker narrates his day in monotonous detail—“I’ll get up soon, and leave my bed unmade. / I’ll go outside and split off kindling wood”—showing how chores, once shared or enlivened by companionship, now exist as empty placeholders. The phrasing “I’ll simply watch, / Or work, or sleep” captures the futility of living without emotional engagement, as if each action carries no distinction from the next. Murray thus transforms routine into a mirror of psychological numbness, illustrating how grief flattens the texture of life into cycles of repetition without purpose.

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🌾 Question 2: In what ways does the Australian landscape function as a reflection of grief?
“The Widower in the Country” by Les Murray situates the widower within an Australian landscape that reflects his sorrow through imagery of harshness and emptiness. The “Christmas paddocks aching in the heat” embody both physical and emotional desolation, with the adjective “aching” anthropomorphizing the land to echo his inner pain. Similarly, the description of “windless trees” and “nettles in the yard” constructs a setting devoid of vitality, paralleling his stagnant state of mind. Even the sunlight becomes hostile, as “the roof reflects the sun and makes my eyes / Water,” blurring vision and thought alike. In Murray’s portrayal, the landscape is not a source of comfort but a projection of the widower’s grief, an externalization of his desolate emotional world.

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🔥 Question 3: How does the poem convey the tension between memory and forgetfulness?
“The Widower in the Country” by Les Murray explores the fragile line between remembering and forgetting through blurred imagery that symbolizes fleeting memories of the deceased. When the widower’s eyes “close on bright webbed visions smeared / On the dark of my thoughts to dance and fade away,” Murray dramatizes how recollections of his wife surface briefly but dissolve into obscurity. The verb “smeared” suggests distortion, while the phrase “dance and fade away” emphasizes the impermanence of memory under grief’s weight. Even his dream-life participates in this instability, as he mistakes the sound of a possum for a haunting scream, revealing how grief distorts perception and destabilizes reality. In this tension, Murray demonstrates how the widower is suspended between remembering the presence of his wife and confronting the inevitability of forgetting her.

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🌙 Question 4: What role does silence play in intensifying the widower’s emotional experience?
“The Widower in the Country” by Les Murray embeds silence into the texture of the poem, making absence more palpable than presence. The description of “the windless trees” and the solitary image of him eating “corned-beef supper, sitting there / At the head of the table” frame silence not as mere quiet but as an oppressive reminder of what is missing. Nighttime intensifies this silence, so much so that the widower interprets a possum’s movement on the “iron roof on little moonlit claws” as a scream, showing how loneliness heightens his sensitivity to any disturbance. Murray crafts silence into an emotional force that underscores the man’s grief, for in every pause and stillness lies the echo of the absent wife whose presence once filled the void.

Literary Works Similar to “The Widower in the Country” by Les Murray

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Representative Quotations of “The Widower in the Country” by Les Murray

Quotation	Context	Theoretical Orientation
“I’ll get up soon, and leave my bed unmade.” ✦ (line 1)	The poem opens with the widower describing his morning routine, indicating a lack of care for his personal space as he delays getting up and leaves his bed unmade.	Psychoanalytic Criticism: The “unmade” bed symbolizes the widower’s unresolved grief and emotional disarray, reflecting a subconscious inability to restore order in his life after the loss of his spouse. This aligns with Freudian concepts of repressed mourning manifesting in neglect of personal rituals, suggesting a psyche burdened by absence.
“I’ll go outside and split off kindling wood,” ❖ (line 2)	The widower describes his physical task of splitting wood, a routine activity that occupies his day.	Marxist Criticism: This line emphasizes the widower’s manual labor, positioning him as a working-class figure engaged in solitary, repetitive toil. The act of splitting wood reflects the proletariat’s reliance on physical labor for survival, highlighting economic isolation and lack of communal support in a capitalist framework.
“From the yellow-box log that lies beside the gate,” ❀ (line 3)	The widower specifies the source of his kindling, a log near the gate, grounding his labor in the physical landscape.	Ecocriticism: The “yellow-box log” represents the widower’s interaction with the natural environment, using its resources for survival. This reflects a minimal yet necessary human impact on nature, suggesting a symbiotic relationship where the widower’s existence is intertwined with the rural landscape.
“And the sun will be high, for I get up late now.” ✿ (line 4)	The widower notes the time of day and his changed habit of rising late, contrasting with the sun’s position.	Psychoanalytic Criticism: The shift to getting up “late” indicates a disruption in the widower’s routine, likely tied to grief-induced apathy or depression. This suggests a subconscious withdrawal from societal norms, with the high sun symbolizing time moving forward while his psyche remains stagnant.
“The Christmas paddocks aching in the heat,” ★ (line 7)	The widower observes the landscape, describing the paddocks as suffering under the intense Australian summer heat.	Ecocriticism: The personification of “paddocks aching” attributes human-like suffering to the landscape, paralleling the widower’s emotional pain. This reflects an ecocritical perspective of interconnectedness, where the environment mirrors human experience, emphasizing the shared desolation of the widower and his surroundings.
“The windless trees, the nettles in the yard…” ☀ (line 8)	The widower continues describing the static, barren landscape around his home, noting the absence of wind and presence of weeds.	Formalism: The vivid imagery of “windless trees” and “nettles” creates a desolate, stagnant atmosphere through precise sensory details. The alliteration in “windless trees” and consonance in “nettles” enhance the poem’s musicality, emphasizing the stillness and neglect of the setting without relying on external context.
“bright webbed visions smeared / On the dark of my thoughts” ✸ (lines 13-14)	The widower reflects on the sun’s reflection causing visual disturbances, which blend with his inner thoughts.	Psychoanalytic Criticism: The metaphor of “dark” thoughts overlaid with “bright webbed visions” suggests a subconscious conflict, where fleeting memories or hopes (possibly of his late spouse) intrude upon a grieving psyche. This aligns with Freudian ideas of repressed emotions surfacing as distorted mental images.
“Then the sun will move on, and I will simply watch,” ❁ (line 15)	The widower describes passively observing the sun’s movement, indicating a lack of action or engagement.	Formalism: The straightforward language and enjambment in this line reflect the poem’s free verse structure, mirroring the widower’s passive, cyclical existence. The simplicity of “simply watch” underscores the poem’s understated tone, focusing on form to convey resignation without external interpretation.
“And eat my corned-beef supper, sitting there / At the head of the table.” ✽ (lines 17-18)	The widower describes his solitary meal, emphasizing his position at the table’s head, typically a place of authority or family leadership.	Marxist Criticism: The solitary “corned-beef supper” and the widower’s place at the “head of the table” highlight his social and economic isolation. This reflects Marxist themes of alienation, as the widower’s labor and minimal sustenance underscore a lack of communal or economic support, typical of a working-class existence.
“Last night I thought I dreamt – but when I woke / The screaming was only a possum skiing down” ❂ (lines 20-21)	The widower recounts mistaking a possum’s noise for a dream, revealing a moment of disorientation upon waking.	Ecocriticism: The possum’s “screaming” and movement on the roof integrate wildlife into the widower’s solitary world, emphasizing nature’s agency. This ecocritical perspective highlights the interplay between human consciousness and the natural environment, where the possum’s presence disrupts the widower’s isolation, connecting him to the broader ecosystem.

Suggested Readings: “The Widower in the Country” by Les Murray

1. Gray, Robert. “An Interview with Les Murray.” Quadrant 20.12 (1976): 69-72.
2. Senn, Werner. “Les Murray.” A Companion to Australian Literature since 1900, edited by Nicholas Birns and Rebecca McNeer, NED-New edition, Boydell & Brewer, 2007, pp. 269–80. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt14brqzd.23. Accessed 23 Aug. 2025.
3. CAREY, JOHN. “LES MURRAY: (1938–2019).” 100 Poets: A Little Anthology, Yale University Press, 2021, pp. 263–64. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1z9n1r9.103. Accessed 23 Aug. 2025.
4. Gould, Alan. “‘With the Distinct Timbre of an Australian Voice’—The Poetry of Les Murray.” Antipodes, vol. 6, no. 2, 1992, pp. 121–29. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41958362. Accessed 23 Aug. 2025.
5. Clark, Gary. “Transmuting the Black Dog: The Mob and the Body in the Poetry of Les Murray.” Antipodes, vol. 16, no. 1, 2002, pp. 19–24. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41957158. Accessed 23 Aug. 2025.