Previous
Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Sister Heart, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Colonial Violence
The Bonds of Kinship
Resilience
Freedom and Bondage
The Healing Power of Nature
Summary
Analysis
A little girl (later identified as Annie) spends the night alone in a dark, cold, cell-like room. She watches as the moon crosses the sky and the shadows of the window’s bars slide across the floor. She thinks about how her Grandpa Mick and Grandma Rosy laughed when they saw Boss’s map, saying that no line on a map could take the land from its people. But now the girl is trapped on the wrong side of the line. She cries for home and for Mum.
The book thrusts readers into the cold, dark cell without any explanation, forcing them to share the little girl’s confusion and to imagine her visceral terror at being taken from her family members. Readers may not know quite what’s happening yet, but it’s clearly not good. This scene also introduces the importance of family—the parent and grandparents Annie clearly misses—right away, too.
Themes
In the morning, a harsh policeman in bully boots hauls the girl (Annie) from the cell and offers her some stale bread to eat. She spits on his shiny boots instead and he hits her. It’s not the first time she has been struck: back at the station, Boss would hit her for spilling tea or asking questions in a way he considered impertinent. The policeman says he doesn’t understand why the government bothers to educate “ungrateful kids” like her. He doesn’t tell her where she’s going.
Slowly, the outlines of Annie’s situation begin to take shape, and the book expects readers to understand that Annie is an Aboriginal Australian girl (“station” is the Australian term for a livestock ranch) and that she’s being taken from her family by the government and sent to a school, which places her story sometime in the 20th century, during which time thousands of Aboriginal children were stolen from their families and forced to assimilate to White settler culture in residential schools. Annie also makes it very clear that she’s all too used to suffering violence at the hands of White people like Boss and the policeman.
Themes
Roughly, the policeman escorts the little girl (Annie) down a sandy road, father and farther from Mum. They arrive at the seaside. Annie refuses to look at the policeman when he warns her to behave. She remembers screaming when he came to pick her up from the storeroom where Boss had confined her over Aunty Adie’s objections.
A man (later identified as Reverend Dale) approaches the girl (Annie) and her escort. The policeman turns her over with relief, noting that she has the “manners of a camel” and warning the Reverend to hold her tight lest she try to run away—she’s as fast as the wind. Reverend Dale wants to know if she speaks English, and the policeman says she knows the language but usually refuses to speak at all. The Reverend introduces himself and points to a ship moored off the shore. He says it will carry them safely to their destination. She wonders where that is. It’s certainly not home; there’s no saltwater between here and her home. She wants to know why they just won’t let her go home.
Readers should note the racist and dehumanizing language the policeman uses to describe Annie. Although he, Reverend Dale, and the authorities at the school claim to have the children’s best interests at heart, it’s a dubious claim coming from people who describe those same children as uncivilized and as animals. Language—especially English versus the Indigenous languages used by the children’s families—is a major site of cultural control in the schools. By refusing to speak, Annie yet again demonstrates her unwillingness to be bullied.
Themes
Get the entire Sister Heart LitChart as a printable PDF.
On board the ship, the little girl (Annie) weeps. She hates the Reverend for taking her on the ship, and the policeman for kidnapping her from the station while her Mum was away. She feels hopelessly lost. She watches the waves rising and falling as the distance between her and home grows, and she continues to weep. She wonders how Mum will ever find her. The sea holds no tracks for Mum to trace her journey, and it offers her no landmarks to follow back home.
Annie’s thoughts give readers insight into how traumatizing it must have been for children stolen from their families and sent to parts unknown. The cruelty of making it difficult if not impossible for these children to find their way home is intentional; by breaking the bonds of family, the government hopes to make it easier to assimilate the children to White culture. But despite her feeling of being lost, it’s equally clear that Annie won’t let her oppressors break her spirit.
Themes
The first night on the boat, restless dreams disturb the girl’s (Annie’s) sleep. She dreams of hunting with Mum and Granny and her baby sister, who makes too much noise and scares away any potential game. In the dream, Annie’s stomach churns. She wakes up vomiting.
Annie hasn’t ever been on a boat (at least not out at sea), and her seasickness adds to her ongoing misery. Her physical illness represents and adds to the heartsickness she feels at being stolen from her dear family.
Themes
The Reverend assures the girl (Annie) her seasickness will pass. He grows impatient when she refuses the bread and water he offers her. All she wants is Mum’s comforting presence. Eventually, she starts to feel better and becomes accustomed to the movement of the boat. Now Reverend Dale demands her gratitude for taking care of her when she was sick. She refuses to say anything, thinking to herself that she didn’t ask to be there. She was taken against her will. Reverend Dale tries to appeal to family, saying he’s sure Mum would want her daughter to be polite. The girl thinks that her mother would just as likely whack the Reverend on the head.
The Reverend arrogantly assumes his kindness will (or should) mean as much to Annie as the comforting presence of her own family. In a way, his surprise at Annie’s so-called rudeness betrays the dehumanization of colonial thought—it’s as if the Reverend, not considering Annie and her family as fully human, can’t imagine that they’d have the same kind of bonds as other people. But they do—and it’s the Reverend who falls short of humanity in this moment.
Themes
Reverend Dale reads the girl (Annie) stories from the Bible. He reads to her about Daniel, who was thrown to the lions, and Jospeh, whose brothers threw him in a hole, and Samson, who was chained up and imprisoned. Then he tells her about Jonah. A giant fish swallowed him. The Reverend reads that story twice. The girl covers her ears with her hands and daydreams about home.
There’s a common theme of being lost or abandoned in the Bible stories the Revered reads. It’s clear he hopes to suggest to Annie that the answer to her loneliness can be found in Christianity—but she’s not listening. And so the stories instead emphasize his lack of empathy, because they merely rub her plight in her face.
Themes
In the hold of the ship, the girl (Annie) huddles under a blanket against the cold and weeps. Periodically, an annoyed Reverend Dale hauls her up onto the deck for fresh air. He doesn’t like it when she stomps in protest. When they approach their first port of call, the Reverend points out the approaching land. He has grown frustrated with the girl’s ongoing refusal to speak. He warns her that he won’t know what she wants if she won’t say. But she knows saying would be pointless. The only thing she wants is to go home. But home gets farther and farther away as the ship continues its voyage.
Annie reacts like the traumatized child she is—she’s just been stolen from her family and all she’s ever known—but the Reverend has little patience for her humanity. Annie’s silence, meanwhile, is the only way she can assert herself against the authorities that have interrupted her life—she was unable to run away or escape their plans for her.
Themes
One day on the deck, the wind blows Reverend Dale’s straw hat off his head and into the water. The girl (Annie) smugly hopes that the whale who swallowed Jonah will eat the hat too. She’s tired of hearing Reverend Dale drone on about Jonah and how the whale was a messenger sent by God to teach Jonah a lesson.
The fact that Annie can still find humor—or at least irony—in the world gives hope that she’ll be able to retain her sense of self despite the efforts of Revered Dale and the others to assimilate and control her. Readers can see that she hasn’t lost her feisty fighting spirit.
Themes
Not long before they reach their destination, the ship encounters a storm. A frightened Reverend Dale asks the girl (Annie) to pray with him for the safety of the ship and everyone on board. But the storm makes her seasick, and she vomits instead. When the storm dies down, the girl and the Reverend to up to the deck, where a gigantic rainbow stretches across the sky. Reverend Dale tells her the story of Noah and says that the rainbow is a sign of God’s grace and hope. The girl wishes she could climb up to its peak and slide down its length all the way home.
The hollowness of some of Revered Dale’s beliefs comes into focus during the storm. Although he’s been telling Annie Bible stories about God’s saving grace for people like Daniel and Jonah, he fears for himself. As soon as the danger has passed, he’s back to his theology lessons, however. The rainbow promises Noah safety and prosperity in the Bible story. Annie, meanwhile, wishes it promised her a way to get home. But the sign is ambiguous: although it offers her a moment of hope and beauty on a bleak voyage, it can’t lead her home.
Themes
Soon after the storm, the ship reaches its final destination. As people bustle about preparing to disembark, Reverend Dale pulls the girl (Annie) aside and tells her that he’s assigned her a new name: Anne, after the mother of the Virgin Mary. He says it’s a name to be proud of. Annie already has two names: a “language name” used by her family and the “english name” Boss used. She only likes her language name. When Annie refuses to say anything, the Reverend defensively insists that he’s doing what is best for her. He accuses her of stubbornness, and he says she would have been better off if “the Church [had] claimed [her] first.” But it didn’t, so he’s going to turn her over to a government official at the wharf.
Not only has Annie been stolen from her family, but she isn’t even allowed to keep her own name. The book doesn’t tell readers what that name is. Although readers are allowed a great deal of insight into Annie, she keeps some things—the most precious things—to herself. And in this way, she continues to assert her personhood. Not only does she continue to her refuse to be grateful to Revered Dale and her other kidnappers, but she also withholds her confirmation that she understands what they’re saying to her (even though she clearly does).
Themes
Annie doesn’t want to stay on the ship, but she doesn’t want to leave it, either. She hears Mum’s voice in her head, urging her to be strong. She takes deep breaths and pretends to be “taller, older” and braver than she feels as she follows the Reverend onto the wharf. After days at sea, the stillness of the land is disorienting, and she stumbles. A new hand pulls her from the ground and thanks Reverend Dale for delivering her safely.
Annie demonstrates resilience in her refusal to show the fear that she legitimately feels. And, importantly, she draws strength for her display of bravery by thinking of her family. Her mother remains a source of comfort even though they’re hundreds of miles apart—hinting that kinship is what will help Annie survive this ordeal.
Themes
