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Chapter 15
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
Falk goes to see Gretchen at the pub below the room he’s staying at. They greet each other, and he says she looks nice. As they talk, Falk tells Gretchen that he went back to his old house and found that it wasn’t what he expected. Gretchen mentions that everyone in town knows that Falk is going around with Sergeant Raco investigating the murders. She thinks Falk should be cautious, although she’d like to find out that Luke didn’t do it.
While Falk can’t go back to the river, his old home, or Ellie, he still has Gretchen, who seems to have renewed significance for Falk after all the other parts of Kiewarra that he lost. Falk fulfills a similarly nostalgic role for Gretchen, although it’s also possible that as someone who moved to a big city, he represents escape, something that would be difficult for Gretchen, particularly since the birth of her son.
Themes
Falk thinks about being 16 and walking along a rocky outcropping with Ellie, Gretchen, and Luke. This was after the kiss, and Falk wanted to find alone time with Ellie, but Luke kept sticking around. Eventually, Luke left to group to go pee. While he was gone, the other three all of a sudden heard a crash. They ran over to see if Luke fell off the outcropping, about a hundred meters, and Gretchen started crying hysterically. Falk realized Gretchen was very drunk. Ellie, however, seemed sure that Luke was faking.
Obviously, Luke doesn’t die for another 20 years, but this passage helps effectively capture the confusion of the moment, showing how Luke’s prank came across as anything but funny to his friends. Like the earlier incident where Luke killed the rabbit, this passage raises questions about Luke’s character, suggesting a potential lack of empathy for other people.
Themes
In the present, Gretchen muses to Falk that as much as she’d like to believe Luke’s innocent, she does believe he’s capable of it. She says Luke’s bravado used to annoy her sometimes when they were younger, but she figured he was probably a fundamentally good person. Falk says he always wondered if Gretchen and Luke would stay together, but Gretchen says that while they stayed together for a couple years after Falk left, they never really had an adult relationship.
Gretchen’s belief that Luke is fundamentally a good person puts the previous flashback in a different context. It raises the question of whether Gretchen is deluding herself and moved by nostalgia to miss Luke’s flaws or if Luke is in fact a good person and Falk is putting too much thought into a few isolated incidents where Luke made a mistake.
Themes
Gretchen asks if Luke ever mentioned her on the rare occasions when he and Falk talked. Falk says he and Luke generally avoided the topic of Kiewarra altogether. Gretchen says she’s surprised Luke stayed in Kiewarra, since it seemed like he wanted to go to Melbourne to study engineering, but she supposes maybe things changed after he met Karen.
The big difference between Falk and Gretchen is that Falk found a way to get out of Kiewarra whereas it seems like leaving was never an option for Gretchen. Her constant references to getting out, including her references to Luke potentially leaving to go to school in the big city, suggest that Gretchen feels trapped in Kiewarra.
Themes
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Thinking of the day on the rocky outcropping, Falk remembers searching for Luke for several minutes after hearing the noise. Eventually, Ellie called out to Luke, saying that they were going to get help, so it was his last chance to say something. But when they returned, they found Luke perfectly healthy, lying on a rock and smoking a cigarette. Falk got angry and lunged at Luke. Ellie was also upset. Luke said Ellie had become boring recently—ever since she’d stopped drinking, she couldn’t take a joke, and she was always working. When Ellie continued to be angry, Luke called her a “bitch.” But Luke did eventually apologize to Gretchen. All of this took place two weeks before Ellie’s death.
While the photograph of Falk, Luke, Gretchen, and Ellie all together seemed to tell the story of an unbreakable teenage friendship, this passage suggests that perhaps there were cracks in that friendship even before Ellie’s death. As Falk investigates the murder of the Hadler family in the present, his mature perspective allows him to work through his memories of the past and gain a deeper understanding of them.
Themes
In the present, Falk considers telling Gretchen about how he and Luke were each other’s alibis during Ellie’s murder. But he reconsiders after Gretchen says that Luke stood by Falk for 20 years, and that without Luke’s influence, things in Kiewarra would be even worse for Falk. Gretchen takes Falk’s hands. Falk thinks about how difficult it must have been for Gretchen to stay behind. Just then, a person Falk recognizes steps into the pub.
Gretchen seems to be specifically telling Falk not to confide in her because she doesn’t want to have to bear the burden of keeping another secret. This raises the possibility of whether she might be holding back some secrets of her own. Seeing Gretchen again as an adult, Falk gains a better sense of her perspective and why she ended up staying in Kiewarra.
Themes
