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Chapter 37
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
Slogs is writing “Boongs piss off” graffiti all over town. Blacky and Dumby are chasing after him. Blacky wants to show Dumby something but he can’t get Dumby to look at whatever it is, because all they see is the graffiti. Blacky feels more and more ashamed. He tries to rub the graffiti away, but he can’t. Slogs keeps writing faster and faster, until he has written all over the peninsula.
The graffiti represents the racism which Blacky now realizes affects every aspect of life (as shown by the writing all over Australia in his dream). Blacky also realizes the connection between the graffiti and Dumby’s death (shown by Dumby’s distraction), expressing how indirect harm like the graffiti connects to direct harm like the shooting.
Themes
Blacky wakes up and realizes he was having a nightmare. He looks out the window and sees his father’s car in the driveway. He looks for his father’s keys in the kitchen but discovers that they’re not there or in the car. This means they’re still in his father’s pocket.
Blacky realizes that combating the racism of his community will require great sacrifice on his part. But because of his friendship with Dumby, he is now willing to make that sacrifice.
Themes
