Previous
Chapter 23
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Crow Country, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Prejudice and Discrimination
Heritage and Land
Justice and Restitution
Violence and Integrity
Summary
Analysis
As Sadie and Walter run, they can hear the sound of Lachie’s trail bike—he will catch up with them. Sadie is desperate, but then a crow appears in the sky. She begs the crow for help, and indeed, the crow leads her to the dried lakebed, and the stone circle. Walter and Sadie take shelter in the stone circle. Crows begin to perch on top of the stones, watching. Still, they can hear Lachie’s trail bike coming closer and closer.
The appearance of the crows in this scene reaffirms their position as guides and protectors of Sadie and Walter, as well as messengers of Waa the Crow. On the other hand, the threatening sound of Lachie’s trail bike, quickly catching up to them, affirms Lachie’s position as their enemy and persecutor. It’s also notable that this is the site of the violence that occurred against Jimmy Raven—cycling back to the setting suggests that similar events may occur in the present and highlights the deep connections between different eras.
Themes
Lachie appears on the edge of the lakebed on his bike. As Sadie and Walter watch in horror, Lachie begins to drive his bike into one of the stones, again and again, trying to topple it.
Lachie’s action of attempting to topple one of the sacred stones shows just how violent and callous he is. He directs his rage at Sadie and Walter into the desecration of the circle of stones, a site which Sadie has explained to him and his father has a sacred significance to the Aboriginal people. This moment also underscores just how little Lachie understands about the power of the land to affect his life and others’.
Themes
Sadie yells at Lachie to stop, but he refuses. Walter picks up a clod of dried earth and throws it at Lachie. It hits him, and Lachie loses control of the trail bike and goes flying. Sadie runs over to Lachie, noticing the blood trickling down his face. Sadie is immediately reminded of Jimmy Raven’s corpse. Walter wants to leave Lachie there, afraid that he will be blamed for Lachie’s injury or even death. But Sadie says they must help him. Sadie realizes that she, Walter, and Lachie “were in the grip of crow’s story, just as Gerald and Clarry and Jimmy had been.” Suddenly, Sadie can hear the crows, and the sky goes black.
The terrible injury that Lachie suffers constitutes a kind of retribution for his desecration of the circle of stones. And yet, Sadie’s insistence, in spite of Walter’s pleas, that they must help Lachie reveals her compassion and wisdom. She realizes that if they do not come to Lachie’s aid, they will be repeating the cycle of violence initiated by Gerald Mortlock and Clarry Hazzard, decades earlier. Sadie seems to realize that in order to break the cycle of violence, she and Walter must make different choices—by acting out of integrity rather than out of self-interest.
Themes
