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Tommy
A friend of Ern and Bob’s from Queensland. Lacking opportunities and hoping that their service will make whites see them as equals, they enlist in the Australian military in 1915, although they initially encounter difficulty getting past the requirement that new recruits be “Substantially European.” Like both of his friends, he ends up injured after the war: his ears are bandaged up in Abbeville, and in his final scene with Norm, he listens to a hymn about the promised land of Canaan and laments that the glimpse of equality he won during the war was immediately taken back after he returned to Australia. Like Bob, he is cynical after the war, feeling that “Australia” was not worth fighting for
Norm Quotes in Black Diggers
The Black Diggers quotes below are all either spoken by Norm or refer to Norm. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Act One
Quotes
RETIRED SCHOOLMASTER: Think about what it might mean, if swathes of Mahommedan Turks or creeping armies of sausage-breathed Huns over-ran our country, imposing their foreign ways, interfering with our women. Imagine the horrors of what it would be like if we were to lose, and you wake up one morning and find us all under occupation.
HARRY: Yeah. Imagine.
They laugh. The old bloke moves on muttering under his breath. They join him, mimicking him at first, but one of them has a bass-drum, their parade of mimicry becomes a rallying march.
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ERN: Soldiers. If you can fire a gun and stand in the sun, they might pretend to forget you’re …
NORM: What??
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I’m sorry, son, I have no idea what to do with this. With you. Wait here.
He goes and talks to a superior. There is much consulting of books and disagreements until a half dozen men are all scratching their heads and carrying on.
Anyone have the slightest idea what “Substantially European” means?
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It needed to be seen; these extraordinary specimens, these gallant figures, resolute as they were silhouetted against a foreign sky, they had the toughness, the ingenuity of the land of their birth. They had come to the other side of the globe to defend noble ideals; to protect motherhood, the safety of law, the sanctity of liberty, to fight for their King and all His Majesty carries … truly, from some confused, even shambolic frontier, the Australian has arrived. Fair, clear of eye, the finest of the British race cast anew under a southern sun. These boys are us, those that remain; those that returned. The greatness of the White Man, rendered greater still by peril, fighting not just for God and Empire, but to define what it is to be a man, an Australian man, in this our young Commonwealth …
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Norm Quotes in Black Diggers
The Black Diggers quotes below are all either spoken by Norm or refer to Norm. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Act One
Quotes
RETIRED SCHOOLMASTER: Think about what it might mean, if swathes of Mahommedan Turks or creeping armies of sausage-breathed Huns over-ran our country, imposing their foreign ways, interfering with our women. Imagine the horrors of what it would be like if we were to lose, and you wake up one morning and find us all under occupation.
HARRY: Yeah. Imagine.
They laugh. The old bloke moves on muttering under his breath. They join him, mimicking him at first, but one of them has a bass-drum, their parade of mimicry becomes a rallying march.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
ERN: Soldiers. If you can fire a gun and stand in the sun, they might pretend to forget you’re …
NORM: What??
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
I’m sorry, son, I have no idea what to do with this. With you. Wait here.
He goes and talks to a superior. There is much consulting of books and disagreements until a half dozen men are all scratching their heads and carrying on.
Anyone have the slightest idea what “Substantially European” means?
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
It needed to be seen; these extraordinary specimens, these gallant figures, resolute as they were silhouetted against a foreign sky, they had the toughness, the ingenuity of the land of their birth. They had come to the other side of the globe to defend noble ideals; to protect motherhood, the safety of law, the sanctity of liberty, to fight for their King and all His Majesty carries … truly, from some confused, even shambolic frontier, the Australian has arrived. Fair, clear of eye, the finest of the British race cast anew under a southern sun. These boys are us, those that remain; those that returned. The greatness of the White Man, rendered greater still by peril, fighting not just for God and Empire, but to define what it is to be a man, an Australian man, in this our young Commonwealth …
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Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
