Camels
The author asserts in her narrative that one definition of survival may be “the ability to be changed by environment.” She herself reveals this capacity by surviving several different changes to the environment from which she came and which are familiar. Australia’s camels are the iconic symbol of this definition, however, since even though its fundamental weirdness may make the camel seem like it is native to the same country where kangaroos and koalas are found, they are all actually descended from camels imported into the country.
The “Click”
“Click” is the onomatopoeia the author uses to represent the act of a picture being taken with a camera. Sometimes the click is made by a tourist. More often the click is related to the snapping of a photo journal the author’s sometimes-companion on her trek. The photographer is there to record her journey for a story in National Geographic magazine in exchange for having underwritten the trip. A deal which she comes to see as one made with the devil. The “click” symbolizes the intrusion from the outside into the private odyssey of self-revelation it was meant to be. Every click equals another interior shout inside her mind: “sellout!”
The Clock
Davidson keeps a clock with her on part of her trek across the outback in an attempt to make the journey more manageable by attributing to it a man-made schedule that replicates a routine nine-to-five job. Eventually, she realizes that such an unnatural imposition upon the natural order is not just impossible, but an attempt to make the environment adapt to the person rather than the other way around. When at last she decides to leave the clock behind her, she is exercising that capacity for survival she defines; she exhibits the ability to adapt herself to a foreign environment and survives as a result of having this capacity.
Kurt
Kurt is a very complicated symbol who represents a variety of things, but when all the disparate facets are combined, it produces a very simple sum. Kurt is the figurative godhead of the patriarchy whose external violence and conflicting actions result from a complexity emotional reaction to women. When she observes that “the Kurts of this world would always win” she is referencing the entire history of patriarchal civilization.
Aborigines
Davidson’s story features a kind of subplot in which she comes face to face with the deep penetrating vicious sort of racism toward the indigenous natives of Australia of the kind she’d never dealt with before. That this link with the white society she knows naturally leads her to learn more about and become closer to Aboriginal culture displays the essential quality of her character. As she learns more about the ostracized natives, she increasingly identifies with them, especially that aspect of their culture which might be described as anti-patriarchal or even feministic. In this way, the Aborigines come to symbolize a more abstract element to her trek: the realization and embrace of her own status as an outsider within her own culture.
