Survival
The Drover's Wife is asked by circumstance to help her family survive, but she feels like a failure because in the past, she was unable to save her brother-in-law from a poisonous snake. She was unable to save her husband from a breaking dam and the ensuing flood, try as she might to save him. She was unable to prevent her child from dying when she became sick too far into the bush for medical attention. The question of the play is whether she will protect her family's survival from a threatening snake.
Relocation and hope
Throughout the play, the woman drops hints that each day is a difficult decision for her. She has to weight the risks of relocation against the risks of staying out in the bush, and the decision is impossible for her. The risks of the bush are formidable, but the drought, the famine, the risk of wildfire, and the dust storms would all be fixed if they had one good rainy season. The question is thematic: Should she stay or should she go? Staying means holding onto faith, but leaving might mean a new opportunity and a new future.
The saving mother
The mother's character is herself a thematic portrait of human nature. Namely, she represents love, because she constantly risks her own well-being for the sake of her family. She consistently sacrifices herself, and when the climax of the story comes, she risks her own life to defeat the poisonous viper to save her son. Tommy offers to help, but she vehemently refuses his help—it is for his absolute safety that the mother has laid her life on the line. The theme is one of undying love.
Death
The woman reflects on death throughout the whole play. Her husband died before the play begins, and she was there trying to save him, trying to detour the water from a breaking dam before the basin flooded below. She wonders if she failed for personal reasons, but the theme is clear: It is out of her power to stop death from afflicting her family. She is unable to save her brother-in-law, her husband, or her deceased infant son. Death is always victorious against humans in the end, but the Wife works to stave off death at all costs.
