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Chapter 12
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Deadly, Unna?, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Race, Injustice, and Action
Courage and Masculinity
Duty and Sacrifice
Teamwork and Family
Summary
Analysis
Blacky is too nervous to fall asleep the night before the grand final football game. He goes looking for his mom, hoping she may give him one of her sleeping pills. He hears that his mom is in the bath, one of the few times of day she relaxes. Although it is past midnight, his father is not home yet. Like always, his mother will wait for her husband to come home so she can serve him dinner.
The contrast between how Blacky’s mother and father handle parental duties is clearly apparent in this scene. Blacky’s mother is stealing relaxation wherever she can find it in her busy life, whereas his father is absent as always. Neither is a positive role model for Blacky, which is part of why he can’t imagine responsibility as something worth aspiring to.
Themes
Blacky asks his mom for a sleeping pill but she says no, she will make him some hot chocolate instead. Blacky says he can make it himself. He drinks the hot chocolate and looks at all of Team-man’s Best Team-man trophies. He begins to read from a book called “Great Finals in Football History.” He reads about the player Ron Barassi and how he led his team to a historic victory. Blacky wonders how someone could become as great a player as Barassi. Feeling a little calmer, Blacky decides to go back to bed. This time, he is able to fall asleep.
As always, Mum is completely devoted to her child and willing to sacrifice her own comfort to help him. Blacky is not comfortable with this sacrifice, so he instead chooses to be independent and help himself. That fact that looking at the book of successful adult football stars helps Blacky calm down enough to fall asleep suggests that he deeply desires the kind of positive role models that he can’t find in his own town.
Themes
