Deadly Unna Essay

Phillip Gwynes novel, Deadly Unna? explores how the main character Gary Black, a white male child from the Port also known as Blacky grows up by not agreeing to racism. Blacky experiences prejudice and fri hold onship from both(prenominal) the aboriginal and white communities. Blacky begins to develop a greater tolerance for indigenes and their culture, and then he further attempts to hand this knowledge to the intolerant and prejudiced town in which he lives. The boy who helps him shift in his conviction of aborigines is a local aborigine named Dumby violent, who lives in the aboriginal missionary The Point.Dumby is of Blackys footb every(prenominal) game team and helps Blacky in various ways to become more tolerant. Throughout the book, Blacky learns many things about fri block offly relationship. Blacky begins to get word the aborigines and their culture, and he then tries to apply it to the intolerant town in which he lives. Blackys first shout is when Dumby saved him f rom being beaten up by Mad Dog, giving Blacky a reason to bring out hating Dumby. The only reason why Blacky despised Dumby in the first place was because his friends Dazza and Pickles disliked aboriginals.After Dumby verbalise bye to Blacky after a footy game, his Port friends asked Blacky if they were friends. Blacky replies No way. Not him. I hate his guts. (Ibid, p. 25). This shows it is not that Blacky did not like Dumby, it is just that Dazza and Pickles pressured Blacky to dislike Aboriginals and not to befriend them. Blackys friendship with Dumby later develops into Blacky being accepted and befriending Dumbys family and relatives. Despite his two Port friends Pickles and Dazza. Blacky stays proud of his new friendship with Dumby.Blacky gradually matures by the end of the year learning a lot about himself from the aborigines and his fellow town. At the start of the book Blacky likes an aborigine named Cl bence Darcy (Blackys mate) gives him advice about Clarence and other female aborigines, Darcy states Just a word of advice from an old bugger whos seen a thing or two in his day. You be careful of these gins (Female aborigines) now, lad. Nice girls, but theyve all got the clap (Gonorrhea). Every last one of em. (Gwynne, 1998, p. 122).Blacky thinks about this for a moment and agrees that Darcy is quite overbold so decides to be careful of Clarence. Later in the story Blacky is sitting at the bar and loose Mac, the bar tender starts to tell a racist joke. When he finishes and the entire bar starts laughing, Blacky does not, he has hear and told the joke before and laughed at it, but it did not seem funny now because of his new friendship with Dumby and Clarence. This shows how Blacky has grown and how he has no humour for racisms. Blackys thoughts about prejudice in the town are confirmed after the football presentations.When the McRae medal was won by Mark Arks (from the white boys footy team), Blacky could not gestate that his town could go this far and be so racist, Dumby had contributed so much to the team all season, he had been the true team player and was the best and everyone in the Port new it, but they continued to hypothesise nothing, Blacky then became really angry. Blacky statesits bullshit, thats Dumbys trophy, (Ibid, p. 133). Blacky realized how racist his town was against the Nungas (Aboriginals). This was the turning point of Blackys look at of the town.Blacky realized how much the Goonyas (white people) in his town hated the Nungas. Another example of Prejudice is when Blacky told Pickles and Darcy about Dumbys funeral both of them thought Dumby deserved to die just because he robbed a bar. Pickles states The old man reckons he got what he deserved. (Ibid, p. 205-206) and Darcy agrees. Blacky saw that his friends were being prejudiced towards Dumby and the whole town is prejudiced towards the aborigines and their culture. Blackys thoughts and actions on Prejudice, fellowship and Growing up have develope d into a more balanced position by the end of the year.Blacky was an immature little boy laughing at racist jokes but now he has maturate into a young man driven by the prejudice in the town and his friendship with Dumby. Blacky shows this in his actions by not attending Cathys BBQ or going fishing with his dad and attending Dumby Reds funeral at the Point with all the Aboriginals. This was a hard decision to make as Cathy would hate him and his father would declare him a gutless wonder for the rest of his life. There was a challenge in this as well as the aborigines might not want him there as he was a Goonya. Clarence statesHey, thanks for coming and all, brudda (Ibid, p. 29).This shows that even though Blacky wasnt family he was just as close to Dumby as a friend or brother. Gwynes novel, Deadly Unna? explores Blackys life and how he has made a priceless friendship with Dumby. Blacky mellows throughout the novel by disagreeing with racism and how prejudiced the town is towards Aboriginals. Blacky experiences many emotions throughout the novel and this culminates when Blacky attends Dumbys funeral, thus showing his friendship with Dumby, Maturing to make his own decisions and how he is not entertain by Prejudice anymore.