Violence and Integrity Theme Analysis

Crow Country tells the tale of Sadie Hazzard, a thirteen-year-old girl who gets pulled into a decades-old murder mystery shortly after she and her mother, Ellie, move to the town of Boort in rural Australia. The dark history involving three families in the town—including Sadie’s own—threatens to repeat itself in the present, when tensions once again erupt between the families. As the conflict unfolds, the novel ultimately suggests that violence begets violence, and that such a vicious cycle can only be broken when one acts out of integrity rather than self-interest.

Gerald Mortlock’s murder of Jimmy Raven in 1933 is the first destructive event which sets a series of violent and tragic events in motion. Gerald himself commits suicide shortly after Jimmy’s murder, suggesting that his violent act against Jimmy ultimately leads him to act violently towards himself. Sadie, for her part, is convinced that Gerald committed suicide because of his feelings of guilt over Jimmy’s murder. Clarry Hazzard, Sadie’s great-grandfather, also dies shortly after helping to cover up Gerald Mortlock’s murder of Jimmy Raven. This again reflects the self-perpetuating nature of violence. Sadie herself sees that her great-aunt Sarah Louise, who also shares the nickname Sadie, and whose body present-day Sadie inhabits when she travels to the past, dies shortly after Jimmy’s murder. When she travels to the past, Sadie discovers that Clarry coerced Sarah Louise into helping cover up the murder. Almost all of the Mortlocks and Hazzards who lived in 1933, therefore, experience either violent or premature deaths. This indicates that Jimmy’s murder has been a catalyst for further violence.

The novel suggests that the cycle of violence that commenced in 1933 risks repeating itself in the present day, when tensions once again flare up between the three families involved. Sadie and Walter (who is a descendant of Jimmy Raven) enter into a conflict with the Mortlocks when they see Lachie and his father, Craig Mortlock, desecrating the sacred site of the stone circle, which sits on the dry lake bed lying in Invergarry, a property belonging to the Mortlocks. The conflict escalates when Sadie and Walter try to recover Jimmy Raven’s “special things” from the Mortlocks’ house and Lachie catches them. Lachie finds Walter and Sadie at the stone circle, where they go to hide. As Walter tries to stop Lachie from knocking over one of the sacred stones, Lachie has a serious accident and goes unconscious. Lachie’s injury—and the danger to which he is subjected—recalls the injury Jimmy Raven sustained decades earlier, when Gerald Mortlock attacked him, and which led to his death almost exactly on the same spot where now Lachie lies bleeding. As such, the confrontation between Sadie, Walter, and Lachie echoes the earlier confrontation, and suggests that the younger generation of the three families’ descendants risk repeating the same cycle of violence that their forbears commenced.

Sadie and Walter, however, make different choices from their ancestors. By choosing to act out of integrity rather than self-interest, they manage to break free of the cycle of violence initiated by Gerald Mortlock and Clarry Hazzard. When Walter realizes that Lachie is seriously injured at the stone circle, he at first wants to leave him there. He is afraid that he will be blamed for Lachie’s injury and will end up in terrible trouble. As such, Walter is initially tempted to act out of self-interest. Because of her time-travel to 1933, however, Sadie is aware that if she and Walter simply leave Lachie to die, they will be behaving no differently from Gerald Mortlock, who had left Jimmy Raven to die in 1933. As such, she insists that she and Walter must come to Lachie’s aid. Walter finally agrees with her, and goes off to find help for the injured Lachie, even though he risks trouble to himself by doing so. As such, Sadie and Walter—faced with the same dilemma that Gerald Mortlock and Clarry Hazzard were faced with decades earlier—make very different choices. They choose to act not out of self-interest, but out of integrity and courage. In doing so, they create a chain of positive events both for themselves and others. They reconcile, for instance, with Lachie Mortlock, who, after having survived his injury, is grateful that they helped him, instead of leaving him to bleed to death. In this way, Sadie and Walter make choices that break the cycle of violence involving the Hazzards, Mortlocks, and Jimmy Raven’s descendants. Sadie even seems to change the fate of her great-aunt Sadie; when she returns to the past and inhabits her great-aunt’s body, she has her aunt act with integrity by hiding Jimmy Raven’s “special things” so that they can be located in the future and be returned to their rightful Aboriginal owners. In having her great-aunt do the right thing by protecting Jimmy’s sacred objects, Sadie forges a different path for her great-aunt, one which sees her living a long and adventurous life. This suggests that there are indeed rewards for acting with integrity.

By choosing to act with integrity and courage, rather than out of fear and self-interest, Sadie and Walter create a very different outcome for themselves and for others. Gerald and Clarry’s violence against Jimmy Raven begets further trauma and death. Sadie and Walter, on the other hand, end the cycle of violence first perpetuated by their ancestors, and in doing so suggests that the key to peaceful progress is integrity and benevolence.