A desert (Metaphor)
Molly’s family lived in the “sun baked land”, in the desert. They were happy and free, for they were together and always supported each other. Not to mention that a life in the desert was extremely interesting for free-spirited Molly. That land was bathed in warmth and light, endless, magnificent and dangerous. It was a realm of nature until the white men came and built high fences through the country.
A burden (Metaphor)
Matthews saw that Constable Riggs managed to find the girls, for they were sitting on his horse. The man referred to them as “a load”. They meant nothing to him, the man didn’t think of them as individuals, they were just a load. This phrase showed that the white men were not ready to treat the Aborigines as their equals.
Sorrow (Metaphor)
The women – Molly’s and her cousins’ mothers and grandmothers – were beating themselves with “a billy (cooking pot)” and wailing loudly to express their sorrow, for they knew that it could be the last time they saw their girls. Looking at the terrible scene in front of them, the women’s hearts “burned with sadness”. It was a terrible tragedy for all of them.
A jail (Simile)
The Moore River Native Settlement where the girls were brought to looked just “like a jail”. The doors “were locked with chains and padlocks”. The dormitories were described as “uninviting weatherboard and latticed” and it had “bars on the windows as well”. It wasn’t Molly’s dream place, by any means.
Like animals (Simile)
The girls had no choice but to run as fast they could, for if they were caught, they would have been punished severely. To be sure that no one would find them when they were sleeping, Molly made the girls sleep “in the bunna (in a dirt hole) like rabbits”. They had to be as quiet as actual rabbits.
