Deadly Unna Case

Essay Question:

Whilst the novel ‘Deadly Unna?’ is set around a football team making the grand final, it explores many other issues. What are these issues? How are these issues explored in the novel? Use relevant quotes and examples from the novel to support your statements.

The novel ‘Deadly Unna?’ is a story written in the perspective of a young teenage boy, Blacky, and talks about events happening around his life. Although the novel is set around Blacky’s football team making the grand final, there are many other important issues that are explored.

The most evident issue in the novel is racism. Blacky and all the Goonyas (whites) lived at the Port, while the Nungas (Aboriginals) lived at the Aboriginal mission, the Point. Just this physical segregation of blacks from whites expresses a silent form of racism between the two communities.

There are also many forms of racism when the Nungas visit the Port, such as in the front bar. There is also physical separation here, “He was in the back bar, or the black bar as everybody called it, because that’s where the Nungas did their groggin’.” (pg 156) The Nungas always have to stay in the back of the bar, and Big Mac, the bar owner, always serves them after he’s served the white people.

Another common form of racism is verbal racism, that is, certain comments, jokes and rumours that are spread verbally throughout the Port. A very strong example of this is in the front bar, when Tommy Red, Dumby’s father, enters. Everyone greets him, because he is a character that everyone likes, everyone except Big Mac. Tommy Red tells everyone a funny story, but the only person who didn’t enjoy it was Big Mac, “…everybody was pissing themselves… Not Big Mac though.” (pg 160) but when Tommy left to go to the back bar, Big Mac started telling a racist joke, “Did ya hear the one about the boong and the priest?” (pg 161) Everyone laughed at the joke, they always did, but this time Blacky didn’t, “But I didn’t, I don’t know why, I’d laughed at the joke before… tonight it didn’t seem so funny anymore.” Blacky didn’t laugh because he coming to the realisation that it had something to do with Dumby and his family in a mean way.

A main focus of racism in the novel is a sign on the shed near the jetty, where it is graffitied, saying “Boongs piss off”. It is not just the sign that makes it racist, but it is the fact that no one in the Port has bothered to get rid of it, showing an indirect form of racism, even though it is plainly plastered there for everyone to see. Blacky eventually notices something wrong with this, and consults Darcy about it, “They should do something about it, shouldn’t they?” (pg 250) but Darcy’s unsolved answer leaves Blacky with more questions on his mind. At the end of the novel he finds out that Slogs the butcher had written it, but realised that no one would