Justice and Restitution Theme Analysis

In Crow Country, the heroine, Sadie Hazzard, learns important lessons about justice and injustice. When she is drawn into solving an old mystery by the speaking crows of the town of Boort, she becomes aware of terrible injustices that transpired in the past involving three families in the town, including her own. It is only by facing these old crimes that Sadie manages to achieve some kind of restitution for past wrongs and help the community to begin to heal. As such, the book suggests that any possibility for forward progress depends on confronting and taking responsibility for injustice.

Through her time travel to the year 1933, Sadie learns about the grave injustices that were perpetrated both by the Mortlocks and by members of her own family against the town resident Jimmy Raven, an Aboriginal man. Through inhabiting her great-aunt Sarah Louise’s body in the year 1933, Sadie learns that Gerald Mortlock murdered Jimmy Raven when the two got into a conflict over the flooding of a sacred Aboriginal site on Mortlock’s land. Jimmy had tried to stop Mortlock from flooding the sacred site, but Mortlock had refused. To her further dismay, Sadie learns that her own great-grandfather, Clarry Hazzard, helped cover up the crime by hiding Jimmy Raven’s body after the murder. Because Clarry Hazzard owed Gerald Mortlock a large amount of money, capital that he borrowed to start the business from which the family makes a living, he feels obligated to help him. Clarry’s financial debt to Gerald therefore clouds his moral judgement. Furthermore, he involves Sadie (in the body of her great-aunt) herself by having her help him hide traces of Mortlock’s crime. As such, by time traveling to the past, Sadie comes to realize that both Gerald Mortlock and her own great-grandfather acted with great dishonor. In overcoming her own ignorance about past crimes, and confronting the role that her family played in those crimes, Sadie takes the first step towards achieving justice.

Sadie attempts to redress the injustice done both by her great-grandfather and Gerald Mortlock to Jimmy Raven. She restores Jimmy’s “special things”—a series of sacred objects that Jimmy had left to Clarry for safe-keeping—to Auntie Lily, Walter’s old relative, and Jimmy Raven’s niece. In doing so, Sadie also attempts to repair the “Law” that has been broken. In speaking to her, the crows often emphasize that the “Law” was broken when Jimmy was murdered, especially as his sacred objects have remained lost—in the wrong hands—for decades. As such, Sadie’s act of restoring the objects to their rightful owners also represents an act of restitution of sorts. Finally, Sadie informs Lachie Mortlock, Gerald Mortlock’s great-grandson, about the murder his great-grandfather committed. In this way, she challenges Lachie Mortlock to take responsibility for his ancestor’s crimes, just as she takes responsibility for the misdeeds her own great-grandfather committed. Sadie’s actions, therefore, emphasize the necessity of acknowledging wrongs done, even if those wrongs were committed by one’s ancestors.

By revealing the truth about Jimmy’s murder, as well as restoring Jimmy’s sacred things to their rightful owners, Sadie confronts and takes responsibility for an injustice committed in the past, and thereby helps to bring about a semblance of justice and resolution to the story of Jimmy’s tragic murder. Auntie Lily thanks Sadie for finding Jimmy’s sacred things. This brings to an end a long search for the special objects which Jimmy had guarded and which were lost with his murder. Furthermore, Walter and Sadie’s act of restoring Jimmy’s grave in the dry lakebed, near the stone circle, represents a recognition and acknowledgment of the injustice done to Jimmy. The grave restoration itself therefore represents a kind of restitution, given that Jimmy’s grave was never marked, as a means of concealing his murder. The marking of the grave again reflects that justice is dependant on genuine acknowledgement of and responsibility for past wrongdoing. That Lachie Mortlock—descendant of Gerald Mortlock, Jimmy’s murderer—offers to help Sadie and Walter find war records of Jimmy also suggests that some of the Mortlocks acknowledge that perhaps a wrong has been done in their name. The image of the three teenagers—one related to Jimmy Raven, one to Gerald Mortlock, and one to Clarry Hazzard—working together to clean up the old graveyard suggests the possibility of reconciliation and forward progress together between the branches of the three families involved in the old crime.

In squarely facing the injustices her ancestors committed and attempting to uncover and make amends for these crimes, Sadie lays the foundation for justice and restitution in the present and future. Though Jimmy Raven’s murder can never be undone, Sadie’s courageous actions lead to an acknowledgement of the crime committed against him, and a return of his most cherished possessions to their rightful owners. In this way, the novel suggests that only by taking full stock of the darkness of past can some semblance of justice and resolution be achieved in the present.