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Chapter 21
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
Inside the pub, the regular customers, including Blacky’s father and both Pickles’ mother and Pickles' father, are all drinking. Big Mac is tending the bar. His hands are down his pants, “adjusting.” This is a gesture Blacky frequently sees from men in his town, but not from people from cities, and Blacky wonders if this is because people from the cities don’t have “beer guts” pressing on their genitals. Big Mac and Rocker compliment Blacky on how big he’s grown and what a good footballer he is. Blacky’s father looks proud and Blacky notes that his father has been paying more attention to him lately.
Big Mac’s “adjusting” is a display of manhood common in Blacky’s hometown. The differences between rural people and city people that Blacky describes here also expose the class differences between those groups. Here, Blacky’s father makes it clear that his approval is dependent upon Blacky’s physical ability as a football player, showing the shallow nature of his affection for his son. Though Blacky is aware of this shallowness, he still craves his father’s attention.
Themes
As Big Mac serves Pickles and Blacky, someone from the back bar asks for a beer. The townspeople call the back bar “the black bar,” because this is where the indigenous customers sit. Big Mac tells the back bar customer to wait because he’s busy. Shirl asks why Blacky’s mother never comes to the pub, but Blacky can’t imagine his mother ever being in such a rough place.
The segregation of the two communities is represented by the separation of the front bar and the black bar. Big Mac shows his racist attitudes by refusing to serve the patrons of the back bar until he serves his white customers, Pickles and Blacky. Blacky’s mother is at home because she always takes care of the children while her husband is out drinking, again highlighting how the models of responsibility in Blacky’s family are ones he doesn’t want to emulate.
Themes
Blacky and Pickles play pool with Rocker and Slogs, another bar patron. Blacky catches himself using some of his father’s slang. They are interrupted when Rocker’s wife calls. She is always angry that he spends so much time at the pub while she is home with their children. Rocker ignores her call. He continues playing pool and drinking while his wife keeps calling.
Blacky’s use of his father’s slang shows how he is becoming more a part of the rough, masculine society his father inhabits. Meanwhile, Rocker’s neglect of his own wife and kids mirrors Blacky’s father’s abandonment of the family, showing this is a common problem in Blacky’s town.
Themes
The bar patrons are carrying on as usual when Tommy, Dumby’s father, walks into the front bar. He has become a regular at the front bar after the grand final. He greets and shakes hands with all the other patrons. He tells a story that makes them all laugh. Noises start coming from the back bar and Tommy goes to check on the indigenous customers there.
Tommy appears to be overcoming the racial divides in the Port through the football team and through his friendships with the white bar patrons. At first glance, these relationships seem similar to Dumby and Blacky’s impactful friendship.
Themes
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Once Tommy leaves, the patrons remark on how much they like him. Slogs says he wishes there were more like him. Big Mac tells a common joke about “the boong and the priest.” All of the regulars laugh, but Blacky doesn’t. He used to laugh when he heard that joke, but now he doesn’t think it’s funny. He knows now that the joke involves his friends: Dumby, Clarence, and Tommy.
Although the white patrons all like Tommy, their comments show that because they haven’t thought about how to challenge their society’s racism, they just see Tommy as the exception to his racial group, not the rule. Big Mac’s racist joke will be recalled later after the pub shooting. Blacky is beginning to question the racism of his town by remembering how it concerns those with whom he has a personal relationship, demonstrating the next step in Blacky’s growing racial awareness.
Themes
