Going Home: Stories Literary Elements

Short Stories; Short Fiction

Australia predominantly in the 1980s.

The point of view in each of the stories is that of the indigenous character, the one difference being in the story "Herbie" whose narrator is Davey, the boy who stands by and watches Herbie be bullied.

The tone is rather resentful, displaying the chip on the author's shoulder.

Herbie is the protagonist, while Davey is the antagonist.

There is conflict within the high achieving young man in the title story, as he lives as if he is a white Australian when in fact he is a black Aborigine; the throws up conflict within him as he loves his life and enjoys his lifestyle, but is also proud of his heritage.

Herbie is bullied and bullied whilst Davey stands by, until he is actually killed.

The fact that he is living the lifestyle of his white art patrons foreshadows the difficulty the young man has when he goes back to his ancestral home.

The author describes a confusion about his ethnicity within the young man in the title story, but this Is an understatement because he is a black Aborigine living as a white Australian.

The stories allude to many real-life situations and incidents between Aboriginal people and white people that have inspired Weller's stories.

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Davey stands by and watches whilst Herbie is beaten up, and killed, and does not feel any sympathy for the boy, but he feels sympathy for Herbie's mother because she has lost her son, and begins to feel remorse for what he has allowed to happen to her.

There Is a parallel between the distrust and dislike of the young artist when he returns home that he experiences from the Aboriginal people, and the dislike he feels he would experience if he did not live essentially a white lifestyle amongst the intellectual elite.

"The Camp" is the way in which all of the indigenous people are described in "Going Home".

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