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Shooting the Moon

Prescribed for HSC English 2024–2027 (NESA) · Last reviewed Shooting the Moon is a short story by the Australian writer Henry Lawson, first published in his 1896 collection While the Billy Boils. Told around a campfire, it follows Jack Mitchell's yarn about fleeing a pub without paying, and it is studied as one of Lawson's set short stories for HSC English.

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Shooting the Moon is a short story by the Australian writer Henry Lawson, first published in his 1896 collection While the Billy Boils. Told around a campfire, it follows Jack Mitchell's yarn about fleeing a pub without paying, and it is studied as one of Lawson's set short stories for HSC English.

Plot

Shooting the Moon opens with the narrator and his friend, Jack Mitchell, sitting around a camp and reminiscing about past experiences. Jack tells the story of how he and his friend, Tom, would attempt to run away from lodgings without paying for their stay – ‘I remember once, at a pub I was staying at, I had to leave without saying goodbye to the landlord.’

Indeed, it was on that night that Jack met Tom for the first time. He recalls how as he was attempting to sneak out of the window of the room, the ‘strange man’ awoke, and asked ‘for loan of the rope when you’re done with it.’ Jack was caught by the landlord whose lodgings they were trying to sneak out of while Tom successfully escaped. Expecting to be reprimanded for his actions, Jack was surprised when the landlord took pity on his and Tom’s circumstances and offered them free board and food for the next few days. Shortly after, Tom got in a fight with another man who had insulted the landlord.

Jack goes on to say that he and Tom travelled together for ten years, but that Tom is now dead.

Context

Henry Lawson (1867-1922) is one of Australia's best-known short story writers and bush poets. Writing in the 1890s, a decade marked by drought, economic depression and a growing sense of national identity, he drew on his own experience of poverty and of tramping through outback New South Wales to portray bush life without romantic gloss. Shooting the Moon appeared in his 1896 collection While the Billy Boils and features Jack Mitchell, a recurring Lawson character whose dry, laconic yarns embody the bush storytelling tradition. The title refers to the old slang for slipping away from lodgings at night without paying the rent, the very escapade Mitchell recounts. For the HSC, Lawson's short stories are set for study in the Common Module: Texts and Human Experiences, where their focus on mateship, hardship and storytelling offers rich insight into the Australian bush experience.

Cultural Assumptions

Plot

This story is entirely centred around the conversation between two travellers. We get the sense that they have travelled from afar and are now taking the opportunity to rest and entertain each other with stories from their past. The moment in which their conversation occurs is suggested to be brief and fleeting, but at the same time Lawson subtly conveys the way in which such interactions punctuated the otherwise harsh restlessness of such men’s lives.

The passage of time is established in the text’s opening lines: ‘watched the big, red, smoky, rising moon out on the edge of the misty plain.’ This also serves to remind us of the smallness of the men amid the vastness of their world, which in turn reinforces the intimacy and indeed the emotional significance of this moment. The ‘tradition’ behind their conversation is reflected in ‘The moon reminded my mate, Jack Mitchell, of something’ – it is as though the moon serves as a constant prompt for reflection – one that is only visible after a long day, when the men finally sit to rest.

Again, the cyclical, or at least recurring nature of their interaction is suggested through the back and forth dialogue that makes up the final section of the story. While the final line ‘Dead – Give us the matches’ sounds blunt and dramatic, throughout the story the matches are referred to as a device that the men lean on in their interactions, and so we get the impression that the exchange of stories is to continue, into this night and the next.

That the story is dominated by dialogue is demonstrative of the importance of mateship, and indeed storytelling, to the bush experience.

Quote Table

  • "People always shoot the moon when there's no moon"

    Technique
    Australian idiom
    Idea
    Bush culture, Swagman identity

  • "Or hung myself, maybe, if things got too bad."

    Technique
    Understatement
    Idea
    Swagman identity, Death

  • "…watched the big, red, smoky, rising moon out on the edge of the misty plain"

    Technique
    Descriptive language, Visual Imagery
    Idea
    Bush landscape

  • "Well, we chummed. His name was Tom-Tom-something, I forget the other name, but it doesn't matter."

    Technique
    Jargon, Irony
    Idea
    Swagman culture, Mateship

  • "Have you got the matches?"

    Technique
    Repeated refrain
    Idea
    Swagman culture and identity, Mateship

  • "You needn't be in such a sweat to jump down a man's throat"

    Technique
    Idiom, Colloquialism, Australian slang
    Idea
    Swagman culture

  • "If you had the swag you might pretend you were walking in your sleep," I suggested, for the want of something funnier to say.

    Technique
    Humorous interjection
    Idea
    Swagman culture, Mateship

More Henry Lawson short stories

Henry Lawson Short Stories - Visual Aid

Visual aidHenry Lawson Short Stories
Stories
Themes
  • Masculinity and its Distinctive Permeations Within Lawson's Texts
  • The Transitional Nature of Gender Roles and Harshness of Bush Identity
  • The Stoicism and Emotional Distance of Bush Living Catalysed by the Collective Unionism and Harsh Environments
Quotes
  • 'Or hung myself, maybe, if things got too bad.' 'Shooting the Moon' Stoicism, bush life, stereotypical identity.
  • "Liquor, however, is stronger than Unionism; and, when the hearse presently arrived, more than two-thirds of the funeral were unable to follow.", 'The Union Buries Its Dead' Stoicism, drinking culture, bush life, unionism.
  • "But this bushwoman is used to the loneliness of it. As a girl-wife she hated it, but now she would feel strange away from it." 'The Drover's Wife', Gender, bush life, stoicism.
Context
  • Henry Lawson was born in 1867 and passed away in 1922
  • 19th Century was the start of the Distinctive Australian bush identity
  • Lawson became partially deaf at the age of nine, which is reflected in his description of isolation within his stories.
  • It was the journey undertaken in September 1892 by Lawson to rural Bourke New South Wales that provided the inspiration for many of the stories in the collection set for study
  • Lawson's purpose is to represent the authentic Australian identity and story.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which module is Shooting the Moon studied in for the HSC?
Shooting the Moon is one of the Henry Lawson short stories set for HSC English, studied in the Common Module: Texts and Human Experiences.
Who wrote Shooting the Moon?
Henry Lawson, one of Australia's best-known short story writers, wrote Shooting the Moon, and it appeared in his 1896 collection While the Billy Boils.
What is Shooting the Moon about?
The story centres on a campfire conversation in which Jack Mitchell recalls sneaking out of a pub without paying and meeting his mate Tom for the first time.
What are the main ideas in Shooting the Moon?
The story explores mateship, storytelling and the way brief moments of connection punctuated the harsh, restless lives of bush travellers.
What type of text is Shooting the Moon?
It is a short story told almost entirely through dialogue, a form that highlights the importance of yarning and mateship to the bush experience.

Same module

More Module A texts

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