Deadly Unna Essay

Phillip Gwyne’s novel, â€Å"Deadly Unna? † explores how the main character Gary Black, a white boy from the â€Å"Port† also known as â€Å"Blacky† grows up by not agreeing to racism. Blacky experiences prejudice and friendship from both the aboriginal and white communities. Blacky begins to develop a greater tolerance for aborigines and their culture, and then he further attempts to apply this knowledge to the intolerant and prejudiced town in which he lives. The boy who helps him shift in his opinion of aborigines is a local aborigine named â€Å"Dumby Red†, who lives in the aboriginal missionary â€Å"The Point†. Dumby is of Blacky’s Football team and helps Blacky in various ways to become more tolerant. Throughout the book, Blacky learns many things about friendship. Blacky begins to understand the aborigines and their culture, and he then tries to apply it to the intolerant town in which he lives. Blacky’s first step is when Dumby saved him from being beaten up by Mad Dog, giving Blacky a reason to stop hating Dumby. The only reason why Blacky hated Dumby in the first place was because his friends Dazza and Pickles disliked aboriginals. After Dumby said bye to Blacky after a footy game, his Port friends asked Blacky if they were friends. Blacky replies; â€Å"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 Dumby’s 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 Clarence; Darcy (Blacky’s mate) gives him advice about Clarence and other female aborigines, Darcy states; â€Å"Just a word of advice from an old bugger who’s seen a thing or two in his day. You be careful of these gins (Female aborigines) now, lad. Nice girls, but they’ve 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 smart so decides to be careful of Clarence. Later in the story Blacky is sitting at the bar and Big Mac, the bar tender starts to tell a racist joke. When he finishes and the entire bar starts laughing, Blacky does not, he has heard 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. Blacky’s 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 believe 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 say nothing, Blacky then became really angry. Blacky states;â€Å"its bullshit, that’s Dumbys trophy,† (Ibid, p. 133). Blacky realized how racist his town was against the Nungas (Aboriginals). This was the turning point of Blacky’s view 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 Dumby’s funeral both of them thought Dumby deserved to die just because he robbed a bar. Pickles states; â€Å"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. Blacky’s thoughts and actions on Prejudice, Friendship and Growing up have developed 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 matured 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 Cathy’s BBQ or going fishing with his dad and attending Dumby Red’s 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 states;â€Å"Hey, thanks for coming and all, brudda† (Ibid, p. 29). This shows that even though Blacky wasn’t family he was just as close to Dumby as a friend or brother. Gwyne’s novel, â€Å"Deadly Unna? † explores Blacky’s 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 Dumby’s funeral, thus showing his friendship with Dumby, Maturing to make his own decisions and how he is not amused by Prejudice anymore.