Feminist Literature
Almost against her will, the story of Davidson’s personal story of a journey of self-discovery in the form of a walking across the Australian desert transforms into a feminist text. This is partially due to making her trek a public spectacle when signs an agreement with National Geographic. However, it is also due to the evolution of her plan from conception to reality. By facing up to the hardened, soul-sucking misogyny represented by that stereotypical “Aussie male” in all its ugly reality, she comes to accept that she has been brought up in culture specifically designed to implicate her place as a citizen. This is conveyed in one succinct sentence filled with imagery:
“…it was essential for me to develop beyond the archetypal female creature who from birth had been trained to be sweet, pliable, forgiving, compassionate and door-mattish.”
Racism
Throughout the narrative runs a kind of subplot about how the narrator increasingly comes to identify with Australia’s indigenous natives, the Aborigines. Coming face to face with the black hole of unremitting racism among the whites out west makes her realize she is an outsider in her own culture. The full scale of how deep the racial bias and prejudice that white Australians penetrates is effectively transmitted through the imagery of descriptions she has heard of the Aborigines from various whites:
“not much better than specialized apes”
“blacks were unequivocally the enemy — dirty, lazy, dangerous”
“stone-age drunks on the dole”
“aimless wanderers who were backward, primitive and stupid”
The Camels
The camels which Davidson learns to train are major characters in the story and as a result take on a certain anthropomorphic quality that brings them to vivid life. This is best achieved when the author describes them individually using imagery that illustrates the unique and distinctive personality quirks of each animal:
“Zeleika was the street-smart, crafty, unfazable, self-possessed leader.”
“Dookie had transmogrified…coming for me with a decidedly Kurtish look in his eyes which were rolling back into his head like spun marbles…making burbling noises and white froth was blowing out the side of his mouth…Dookie was completely berserk.”
“Goliath…had his mother's brains and his father's easy good looks and he was born a fighting handful—cheeky, pushy, self-centered, demanding, petulant, arrogant, spoilt, and delightful.”
Kurt
The “Kurtish” look in the eyes of Dookie mentioned above revers to Kurt, the man who teaches the author how to train camels. Kurt is introduced fairly early on and that introduction presents him in a way that adheres to the author’s assertion that he is “the most extraordinary individual I had ever laid eyes on.” Kurt proves to be almost without argument the most fascinating character in the book if only by virtue of his many contradictions. Recognizing what kind of character she’s got on her hands, she introduces Kurt to the reader with imagery befitting the protagonist in a novel:
“Kurt came out to greet me with as much enthusiasm as his Germanic nature would allow. He was dressed in an immaculate white outfit, with an equally crisp white turban. But for his ice-blue eyes, he looked like a bearded, wiry Moor. Standing near him was like being close to a fallen power line — all dangerous, crackling energy...I had barely got out my name before he had led me to the verandah and begun to tell me exactly how life was to be for the next eight months, grinning, gap-toothed, all the while.
'Now, you vill come to verk for me here for eight months’”
