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Chapter 25
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
The next day, instead of going to the jetty and seeing Cathy, Blacky goes snorkeling with his siblings at Black Rock. Blacky realizes Cathy is the same as the other campers, meaning she is an insincere snob who goes to a private school. He’s lucky he isn’t dating her, he thinks, because now he can date someone who isn’t so stuck-up.
Blacky again shows his power to lie to himself about his genuine thoughts and opinions. This foreshadows the coming scene where he will convince himself that his football team doesn’t have a problem with race, when he clearly knows that it does.
Themes
The temperature drops and the sky becomes cloudy. Darcy suggests Blacky go squid fishing off the jetty. Blacky decides to ask Pickles, because although Pickles is annoying, he is the best squid fisherman in town. Pickles agrees to go because his maggot business isn’t doing well.
Pickles’s superior fishing ability explains why Blacky is still friends with him, as their community values fishing and sports ability over traits such as kindness or moral character.
Themes
The next day, Blacky wakes up early to go squid fishing. His mother worries about his clothes getting covered in squid ink and makes him go change. Blacky walks to the jetty feeling happy that he is no longer consumed by thoughts of Cathy. He and Pickles drop their lines off the jetty and then sit down in the shelter. Blacky notices that the graffiti saying “boongs piss off” is still written there. It reminds him that he hasn’t seen Clarence or Dumby since the party.
Though he has gained a greater awareness of his community’s racial issues, he has still not taken the initiative to cover up the graffiti. This shows how difficult it can be for one to act against racism even if one knows that one should. The fact that Blacky has not seen his indigenous friends recently also emphasizes just how separate the Port and the Point are outside of football.
Themes
Blacky begins to doubt whether or not he will really quit football. Quitting would mean he’d have nothing to do in the winter. Maybe, he thinks, Mark deserved the trophy over Dumby after all, especially because Dumby made that reckless pass to Clemboy.
Blacky’s thoughts show how challenging racism involves personal sacrifice, which Blacky isn’t yet ready to accept. Because he’s still looking out for his own desires first, Blacky ends up denying what he knows is true rather than doing what’s right.
Themes
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Blacky loses his train of thought when Pickles farts. He goes to check on his lines. He thinks Pickles is following him and tells him not to fart again. When he turns around, he realizes he has just said that to Cathy. He is horribly embarrassed, but she smiles at him. They chat about catching squid. Blacky lets her try catching one on a line. Cathy says she’s never been squid fishing before. Cathy mentions that Blacky doesn’t talk much, to which Blacky replies that the McDermott boys talk too much.
Blacky makes assumptions about his surroundings, because he believes he always knows what to expect with his community. His assumptions are comically challenged here by the appearance of his love interest, Cathy. Cathy will continue to challenge Blacky’s assumptions about her as a girl from the city, showing he doesn’t know as much as he thinks he does about the world.
Themes
Pickles joins Blacky and Cathy. He’s mad that Cathy is there because he thinks girls can’t catch squids. But Cathy lures in a squid and Pickles brings it up with a tool called a jig. Blacky realizes that Pickles is going to spray Cathy with squid ink. Blacky jumps in front of her and gets sprayed in the face instead. Pickles throws the squid on the jetty and kills it with a knife.
Pickles shows the misogyny frequently displayed by residents of the Port (his attitude here is similar to the one that Arks takes when he ignore’s Blacky’s mom’s football advice). This prejudice portrays the Port as a traditionally patriarchal, close-minded place.
Themes
Blacky sees Cathy’s father walking towards them. He appears angry. He tells Cathy everyone’s been waiting for her. Cathy says she’ll see Blacky again soon and leaves. After she leaves, Pickles says that Blacky has a crush on her, and Blacky denies it.
Cathy’s father’s anger suggests class tension between urban and rural Australians, but Cathy’s goodbye to Blacky suggests they may overcome this divide. In some ways, the way that the people from the city discriminate against rural people like Blacky mirrors the way that the Port residents discriminate against the indigenous people from the Point.
Themes
