"The Drover's Wife" takes place in the Australian wilderness, where the weather is often cruel and unforgiving. At several points, the story uses imagery to convey just how threatening the weather can be. One such example occurs midway through the story, when there's an intense storm:
The thunderstorm comes on, and the wind, rushing through the cracks in the slab wall, threatens to blow out her candle. [The bushwoman] places it on a sheltered part of the dresser and fixes up a newspaper to protect it. At every flash of lightning, the cracks between the slabs gleam like polished silver.
In the above quote, the story depicts the thunderstorm as being so invasive and powerful that it actually breaches the boundaries of the bushwoman's home, bringing the outside inside, "rushing through the cracks in the slab wall." As the bushwoman sits watching her children, waiting to catch a glimpse of the snake that's just entered her house, a threat from outside the house mirrors the threat indoors. The wind threatens to break through the wall, and as do the flashes of light from the thunderstorm that expose the cracks in the shanty "like polished silver."
The fact that the elements are able to intrude into the house in this way shows the fragility of the ramshackle dwelling, emphasizing the bushwoman's vulnerable situation. The story depicts the shelter she and her husband have constructed against the natural world as being delicate, leaving her and her children in constant danger of exposure.
