Crime, suicide and the anti-hero: 'Waltzing Matilda' in Australia

Title: Crime, suicide and the anti-hero: 'Waltzing Matilda' in Australia
Creator: West, Brad
Relation: Journal of Popular Culture Vol. 35, Issue 3, p. 127-141
Relation: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118976097/abstract
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, Inc.
Resource Type: journal article
Date: 2001
Description: For the past 85 years, the song “Waltzing Matilda” has been central to Australian national identity. The hero in the song is a vagabond swagman who steals a sheep and, when confronted by the authorities, commits suicide. While the swagman is in many ways typically Australian, there are distinct parallels with popularly celebrated social bandits such as Antonio Silvino, Salvatore Giuliano, Jesse James and Rob Roy. Such characters challenge our assumption that society negatively amplifies deviance. This paper reviews the dominant histoncalklass-based understanding of the anti-hero, arguing that it is fruitful to conceptualize the criminal hero as a manifestation of the mythological figure of the trickster.
Subject: national identity; hero; swagman; social bandits; defiance
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/34539
Identifier: uon:3575
Identifier: ISSN:0022-3840
Language: eng
Reviewed

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