Crime, jail, and the criminal element
Images of crime include death row prisoners being hauled in their chains onto boats to be shipped to Australia, without their consent or knowledge. Then there is the litany of crime that is committed in Australia. Even the most upstanding citizens are petty criminals, like Mary, the sweet-hearted kleptomaniac. This imagery suggests that life in Australia is like cruel and unusual punishment.
The Australian landscape
In all the earth, there is no land quite like Australia. The animal life on that island is unusual, dangerous, and often terrifying, and that doesn't even begin to deal with the Aboriginal people or the harsh weather of the seasons. Life in Australia is depicted the way it is—extremely difficult.
The imagery of the play
The play within the play, so to speak, is a commentary on British tyranny. The imagery associated with the play is most intriguing when the playwright has to read the lines to his actors because none of them can read. He's trying to put on a play about how the British regime disenfranchises the poor and desperate, and his actors are so disenfranchised already, they cannot even read their own mother tongue. The play is performed on the birthday of the monarch, another nice touch, and the set, costume, and performance is described.
Images of the underworld
What Farquhar is most concerned by is what Australia is in relationship to Britain. Since Australian colonizers are literally criminals being shipped to the new world without their permission, Australia is a perfect snapshot for Britain's own "dark side." This hellish idea is consistent with the entire novel. It's like Britain, without the pretense of civility, so that the brokenness of their society is more noticeable. The ultimate demonstration of Britain's brokenness (in Farquhad's opinion) seems to be that they will not stop colonizing the world, and he feels there must be some people becoming unbelievably wealthy, while others starve and struggle. Also, this means that the difference between Britain and Australia is not that Australians are bad and Brits are good, but rather, Australia shows something about British culture during that time that continued on well into the future.
