Previous
Chapter 10
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Dry, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Human Cost of Climate Change
Justice
Urban vs. Rural
Friendship
Summary
Analysis
Later that day, Falk goes by the school with Sergeant Raco and sees a sapling dedicated to Billy and Karen. He remembers how back in school, Luke always used to protect him. Falk and Raco go to speak with the school principal, Scott Whitlam. As they walk with Whitlam, they notice how rundown the school is due to its lack of funding. The school still teaches farming, although Whitlam himself is from Melbourne.
The lack of Luke’s name on the sapling could be innocuous (since Karen worked at the school and Billy was a student but Luke had no connection of his own). Still, it seems to suggest how most people in town have decided to buy into the story that Luke did in fact kill his whole family and himself. This illustrates the difficult position Falk and Raco will be in to prove otherwise.
Themes
Sergeant Raco asks Whitlam to tell them about Karen, who worked at the school. Whitlam gives them a sealed cardboard box of Karen and Billy’s things. Whitlam says Karen came to see him the day before she died, looking worried. Her behavior had been erratic for the past couple weeks. She said she had a problem and Luke wasn’t going to be happy. She believed their farm was going under financially, which was why she’d been acting so distracted. She apologized to Whitlam for her sloppy work and asked him not to tell Luke about this conversation.
Whitlam’s testimony seems to suggest that he does in fact believe Luke is the killer. As the principal, he may have overseen the sapling dedicated to Karen and Billy earlier that excluded Luke. Whitlam’s testimony also seems to cast more doubt on Karen than any previous witness’s testimony, suggesting that she wasn’t a meticulous bookkeeper—at least not in the weeks leading up to her death.
Themes
Whitlam says he didn’t know Luke well. It was a particular shock to hear about the murders, since Billy was supposed to come over to see his daughter that afternoon. But on the day of the murders, Karen called to say Billy was feeling sick (even though he felt well enough to go to school that day). Despite the strange timing, Whitlam notes that there was a bug going around at school, so it’s very possible Billy was just sick.
The mystery about Billy staying home on the day of the murder seems to cast further suspicion on Karen and perhaps confirm the idea that she was acting erratically. Whitlam’s mention of the bug complicates this, however, offering the possibility of an innocent or coincidental explanation. It’s hard to figure out at this point what stake, if any, Whitlam has in the case that could be biasing his testimony.
Themes
