The Ute Symbol in The Dry

In The Dry, utes symbolize rural Australian identity. A ute is a type of utility vehicle similar to a pickup truck that is mostly only sold in Australia and New Zealand. Utes have a cargo bed that’s useful for farm work, making them popular among farmers for practical as well as cultural reasons. Even though the protagonist Falk grew up in Kiewarra, he moved to Melbourne, an urban area, many years ago and so doesn’t drive a ute, as he doesn’t need a vehicle with a cargo bed for his work. Thus, Falk’s not having a ute establishes him as a literal and cultural outsider among the residents of rural Kiewarra, where most people work in agriculture. . Conversely, the abundance of utes among farmers in Kiewarra symbolize how the land (and more specifically, the availability of natural resources) shapes life in Kiewarra and in rural Australia in general.

The most noteworthy ute in the story is Luke’s silver ute, since it is where the search party discovers Luke’s dead body. Falk can easily identify Luke’s ute in security footage, and so looking at the movement of utes on traffic surveillance footage becomes an important way to track people’s movements on the day of the murder. While Luke’s specific ute becomes important to the plot’s central mystery and gets at Luke’s deep connection to his farm work, the abundance of utes in town also represents how their connection to the land gives them a collective identity. The people who own utes in Kiewarra are likely to be farmers, and farmers are the ones who are most likely to be struggling from the drought. Thus, utes symbolize much the residents of Kiewarra depend on farming and the availability of natural resources. In this way, then, utes also the drought’s disruption to life in the rural town, making farm work difficult or impossible and threatening the very identity of farming communities like Kiewarra.

The Ute Quotes in The Dry

The The Dry quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Ute. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

The Human Cost of Climate Change Theme Icon

He’d always assumed Luke had been found in the ute’s driver’s seat, but the images showed his body flat on its back in the cargo tray. The lip of the tray was open and Luke’s legs dangled over as though he’d been sitting on the edge. A shotgun by his side pointed towards the mess where his head would have been. His face was completely missing.

Related Characters: Falk, Luke, Sergeant Raco, Karen, Billy

Related Symbols: The Ute

Page Number and Citation: 49

Explanation and Analysis:

The Ute Symbol Timeline in The Dry

The timeline below shows where the symbol The Ute appears in The Dry. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...shoot. They were slightly relieved when they found him dead in the back of his ute (a “utility” vehicle with an open cargo area in the back) in a clearing, still... (full context)

...books for Karen when he came across Luke’s body in the cargo tray of his ute, which was partially open, as if Luke had been sitting up with his legs dangling... (full context)

Sergeant Raco doesn’t find the streaks unusual—the ute would’ve carried a lot of things. In any case, the ute is now in Melbourne,... (full context)

...home around four (when Karen’s car passes the camera), then about an hour later, Luke’s ute passes the camera. The murder itself isn’t visible on-screen, but soon after, Falk can hear... (full context)

...against Luke, especially since no one else comes or goes until the courier arrives 35 minutes later, but Sergeant Raco argues that you can’t see who’s driving Luke’s ute. Raco admits... (full context)

...He told Sullivan that he didn’t have time for a beer, then he took his ute home. (full context)

...Mostly he learned that Karen was a good bookkeeper. As they talk, they re-trace Luke’s route, driving from Sullivan’s to where Luke’s body was found in his ute. (full context)

...confirms that based on the blood splatter, Luke must have been shot right on the ute. Falk and Raco speculate about what might’ve happened if Luke wasn’t the one who killed... (full context)

...a slit throat on their doorstep, and the next day, they left Kiewarra, with Deacon’s ute following them for the first hundred miles. (full context)

...clothes and had wet hair. Gerry stopped at an intersection, then he saw a white ute follow Luke. Gerry doesn’t know who was driving the ute, but the person must have... (full context)

...from the farm and stops by the side of the road to think. Unfortunately, white utes are common in Kiewarra, so Gerry’s story doesn’t help Falk much. He does wonder, however,... (full context)

...knows the basic story. Falk shows Sullivan the photo of the horizontal marks on Luke’s ute and asks if Sullivan knows what caused them. Sullivan suggests rust, but he seems to... (full context)

...when Deacon followed them for several miles outside of Kiewarra, Deacon was driving a white ute. (full context)

...Falk puts in a call to Melbourne to get a list of all the white utes in Kiewarra, but it turns out that hundreds of people own them, including Deacon, Gerry,... (full context)

...about the case. In a flashback to the day of the murder, Luke drives his ute home from Sullivan’s with his palms sweating. He is nearly back when a figure stops... (full context)

...car at the school the whole time. Falk realizes that the horizontal lines in Luke’s ute must be from bicycle tires—Whitlam rode must’ve ridden his bike over and then flagged down... (full context)

In a flashback to the murders, Whitlam drives Luke’s ute with Luke’s body in the back. Whitlam doesn’t know enough about Luke’s house to sneak... (full context)

...them argue, then they go their separate ways. But then Gretchen follows Luke in her ute to see if he’s going back to Ellie. For a second, she thinks he might,... (full context)

The Dry

Jane Harper

The Ute Symbol Analysis

The Ute Quotes in The Dry

The Ute Symbol Timeline in The Dry