The house was a hornet’s nest, like Angel Day, and Normal spoke of it as if it were her.
The novel begins and ends with the location of the Phantom house on top of the nest of a serpent spirit. Angel Day chooses this site to start building their family's home out of trash and debris. Despite her husband’s reluctance to settle there, Angel is persistent and achieves her goal. This quote demonstrates the way that Angel, the house, and the serpent spirit are often intertwined. Both Angel and the house have a captivating, sometimes imprisoning effect on Norm and other visitors.
The coming of Elias Smith generated an era of self-analysis not seen in the Gulf for a very long time.
When Elias walks out of the sea and onto the shores of Desperance, white people retell and relive their colonial origin story. Their story is that they came from nowhere and arrived in these lands, which they now own and rule over. The arrival of Elias causes Desperanians to remember and connect with this story. In this sense, the narrator's description of white settlers’ self-analysis is sarcastic, since they are not really questioning their origin story but are instead only seeking to confirm it. For the Aboriginal residents of Desperance, this event causes them to analyze how they depend on white people for schooling and jobs.
But the act of a community closing in on itself was not an isolated act particular to Desperance alone. Go anywhere and it was the same, same, same.
In this quote, the narrator characterizes white settler culture not just in the fictional town of Desperance, but in this region of Australia more broadly. These people are closed-minded, conservative people. They are xenophobic and resistant to change. They are also insular and create their own truths. In this way, the author explores the kinds of qualities that sustain white racism in this region of Australia.
What was a good law or a bad law, huh? Nobody, particularly Pricklebush, could just go out there, and say things to Elias, such as—Don’t go! The Pricklebush knew how rights were minuscule. How could anybody, even somebody like Norm Phantom, interfere with the boundaries of someone’s fate? You want to be called a troublemaker, Norm? Everyone was pleased enough to accept his or her own fate from the natural flowing dominating law of white governance?
This quote focuses on the contrasting and often contradictory types of law in Carpentaria. Under the law that the white residents of Desperance impose, Aboriginal people have “minuscule” rights. This law refers not only to the legal codes that the police and courts uphold, but also to the informal ways in which Desperanians enforce white supremacy and oppress Aboriginal people. In contrast, the old Pricklebush people follow Aboriginal Law, which refers to the inside knowledge of the natural world in the Gulf of Carpentaria. This law has been passed down from generation to generation and enables residents to live in harmony with nature. Finally, the law of Dreamtime seems to refer to the logic that governs the spiritual world.
"Hands too many,” he whispered, coughing, "running like mice all over every dwelling, trying to reshape, push, mould, trying to make things different. White hands."
Mozzie Fishman is opposed to reconciliation with white settlers. This is because he believes that even if the era of outright massacres by colonizers may have ended, white people continue to exercise violence over Aboriginal communities. In particular, they exercise this violence through their governments, which seek to control and exploit Aboriginal people. Mozzie’s recurring visions of white hands are a powerful image that represents this ongoing interference and violence in Black communities.
Will had climbed higher into the hills, until eventually he came to a large rock cave. Inside, the walls were covered by ancestral paintings telling stories of human history, made and remade by ochre paints, as the forefathers whispered the charter of their land. Will acknowledged their presence, touched the walls in places to embrace the timelessness of his own being. He felt humbled, honoured to be in the home of birds, animals, and clanspeople of time passed.
In this quote, the author highlights the connection that Will and his Aboriginal people have with the land, all the beings that inhabit it, and his ancestors. The white settlers of Desperance, and especially the mining company, see the land and water as resources to exploit for profit. Most of them would be very upset if they had to spend the night in the cold, dark hillside. However, Will, on the contrary, feels honored to be in this cave where he is surrounded by tangible reminders of his connection to his ancestors and the natural world. Moreover, he feels humbled to be a guest in their home.
Norm stared at Truthful, while the room bristled with long-unresolved tensions about dead bodies, finding someone to blame, how to classify the terms of victimisation, trashed homes, and ramshackle bodies recovering from sexual abusers who wallowed with joy, like they were opening presents on Christmas Day. Each of the daughters recognised the body language. Norm was sitting at the table, rigid, like one of his stuffed mullets. They raised eyebrows at each other—he was brewing again. Truthful was chewing gum.
Wright addresses the themes of police violence and sexual abuse with literary mastery. In this scene, the author describes the rising tension between Constable Truthful and Norm Phantom. The Constable frequently hangs around the Phantom household for hours until Girlie gives into his pressure to have sexual relations. He takes advantage of his position of power as a white policeman in order to take advantage of Girlie, a Black, Aboriginal, and economically disadvantaged woman. In response, Norm longs to kill Truthful and defend his family’s dignity.
"A fish lives far better than a dry old blackfella from Desperance."
This quote illuminates the significance of the seaworld for Norm and other Aboriginal seamen. The sea in general, and in particular the beautiful, mystical world where Norm imagines the groper fish dwell, remains far more connected to the way the world was before colonization and environmental degradation. This sea world is still governed by Aboriginal law and the laws of Dreamtime, in which the connection between the sea and the sky, the earthly realm and the spiritual realm, is far more fluid. In contrast, on land in Desperance, a “blackfella” like Norm faces impoverishment, discrimination, and violence.
“You were quick smart about finding a few little black boys to arrest for that stupid Gordie. The pimp. He deserved what he got. But what did our Kevin do? What harm did he do to anyone?”
This quote exemplifies the theme of institutionalized racism. The police are racist in Desperance. When Desperanians find Gordie dead, Constable Truther and Mayor Bruiser quickly arrest three young Black boys. Most people in town do not think the boys even committed the crime. However, when white boys brutally attack Kevin, the police do not arrest anyone. Under the racist logic of Desperance institutions, Kevin and other members of the Aboriginal community are viewed as criminals just for being Black and impoverished.
Life had no meaning in this new war on their country. This was a war that could not be fought on Norm Phantom’s and old Joseph Midnight’s terms: where your enemy did not go away and live on the other side of town, and knew the rules of how to fight. This war with the mine had no rules. Nothing was sacred. It was a war for money.
The Aboriginal community in Desperance is used to fighting wars. After all, the Phantom and Midnight families have been fighting the same war for centuries. However, in this quote, Will Phantom characterizes a new type of war with the mining company that has a totally different nature. This war has no rules and views nothing as sacred. The only thing that matters in this new war is money and profit. More broadly, the author characterizes the new war that many Indigenous communities are facing as companies seek to exploit natural resources on their traditional territories.
