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Chapter 38
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
In the present, Falk, Barnes, and Sergeant Raco make it to the school, but Whitlam’s office is empty. Whitlam’s daughter is still in class, so they figure he hasn’t skipped town yet. A search team begins combing the area. Raco and Falk go to the woods where they encounter Whitlam alone with a pistol. He warns them to drop their weapons. He holds up his hand so that Falk and Raco can see he’s got a lighter.
The relationship between parents and children is a constant theme throughout the novel, and Falk and Raco know that in spite of everything, Whitlam is unlikely to abandon his daughter. When they find Whitlam alone in the woods with a lighter, the scene recalls when Falk found his own lighter and realized how dangerous a lighter could be in such a dry environment. The fire that Whitlam threatens to light symbolizes how his murders have already metaphorically lit a fire through the community as well as how the drought has put the whole community in a precarious position.
Themes
