Storytelling and Truth Theme Analysis

For the first few years of Rooke's friendship with Lieutenant Silk, Rooke creates a binary system to think about the relationship between storytelling and truth. He positions himself as a man of science; that is, he records undeniable, unquestionable, rational truth. Silk, on the other hand, is a storyteller. Though Rooke recognizes that the stories Silk tells contains nuggets of truth, he also believes that Silk is far more interested in crafting a compelling narrative than in telling the exact, scientific truth like Rooke does. When Rooke begins secretly recording Cadigal grammar and vocabulary in New South Wales, he starts doing so in a very scientific way--one that he believes will tell the whole, unadulterated truth of the language. However, as Rooke continues to keep what he's doing secret, he begins to realize that storytelling isn't necessarily out to undermine the truth. Rather, he realizes that secrecy will undermine both the actual truth and the story he tells about it.

During the American Revolutionary War, Silk tells stories during dinner with one purpose: to entertain. These stories amuse Rooke as well as the other soldiers, and Rooke comes to realize that crafting entertaining stories is a cathartic process for his friend, much as science and math had spared Rooke from emotional pain in the past. Therefore, Rooke begins to think of both storytelling and science as different ways to tell the truth and make sense of it. However, once in New South Wales, Rooke begins to question this assumption. The way that Silk talks about his commissioned narrative of New South Wales begins to trouble Rooke, as Rooke notices discrepancies in Silk's narrative. Rooke worries, then, that Silk is lying about his time in the colony in order to craft the most compelling narrative possible, which leads Rooke to wonder what Silk's true motives are. He's particularly concerned when Silk talks about what he wishes would happen for the sake of his narrative, such as prisoner uprisings or an attack by the natives. At that point neither event seems likely to happen, and the natives in particular have shown little of themselves or of any violent tendencies. This leads Rooke to believe that his own methods of recording truth in scientific terms are far superior to Silk's method of storytelling, as he sees that while Silk's stories are ripe for embellishment, his meteorological readings are impossible to turn into an embellished story.

As Rooke's trust in Silk begins to erode, his relationship with Tagaran and the other Cadigal women and children flourishes. Rooke records what he learns of the Cadigal language in two notebooks in a way that he believes is inarguably truthful: he organizes verb and vocabulary lists, as well as ways of organizing grammar rules. By creating a very scientific method of recording the language, Rooke hopes to avoid some of the embellishment and tendency towards untruth he sees in Silk's narrative. However, as Rooke finds that his scientific system doesn't allow him to effectively record everything he hears and learns, he begins to develop his own method of storytelling. He starts simply recording conversations in Cadigal word for word, and then makes brief notes in English to describe what happened, what was said, or the meaning of specific words. To Rooke, his rudimentary notes are enough to convey what happened and what was said. Notably, Rooke never intends for anyone else to read his notes. They're only enough to jog his memory and this method of storytelling, coupled with the fact that Rooke keeps his studies and relationship with the Cadigal secret for so long, has disastrous consequences.

When Silk reads Rooke's notebooks, he does so without any of the knowledge that Rooke has about what happened. Because of this, Silk doesn't read the notebooks as unadulterated truth; he takes Rooke's bare-bones notes and reads extended narratives into them that were never actually there. He reads a disturbing sexual relationship between Rooke and Tagaran, but he does so because he doesn't have any of the background knowledge that Rooke does. Essentially, though Silk certainly creates a compelling story where there isn't one, he only has the opportunity to do so because Rooke didn't effectively convey a truthful narrative to begin with, either verbally or on paper. When Silk refuses to believe Rooke, Rooke learns the true consequence of his secrecy and his silence: he's no longer in control of the story his "truthful" notes can tell. Though Rooke goes on to keep his notebooks secret to prevent the same thing from happening again, Rooke learns that storytelling, particularly when done with care to convey the truth, most certainly has its place. His most important takeaway, however, is that a highly-embellished tale isn't the only way to obscure or compromise the truth; secrecy and silence have the potential to do just as much damage.