The Secret River

The Secret River by Kate Grenville is a fictional story through and through; however the nuggets of truth and often overlooked history that it’s based on rang with a depressing overtone that truly resonated within me as an Australian. This conglomeration of semi-fictional truths is a story about morality and the inner demons inside all of us, which inadvertently caused the colonization of Australia to be what it was. My initial knowledge off the ‘settling’ of Australia was general at best; however, nothing that occurred was surprising to me and I can easily imagine the events that this book is loosely based on could happen in real life. With that said, I believe Kate Grenville managed to present these events in such a way that caused me to

An extremely vivid example of this is demonstrated by William Thornhill when he, almost deadened from the ice-forming cold, would make sure to stay awake for as long as possible so he could steal the rags and straw disguised as blankets from his siblings. This, while being a very calculated and cold action, is something that can, to a certain degree, be justified for a child unable to bear the unrelenting cold that was so bad “…his feet were stones at the end of his legs”. What I found so chilling about it, however, was the way it was done so casually, how it was just another fact of life, something that had to be done to survive. This kind of behaviour stays with Thornhill as he becomes a man and can be perfectly demonstrated through the way he treats his ‘servants’. Despite one of the two indentured men, Dan, being a close friend of Thornhill when they were both kids, he immediately fills the position of ‘master’ with no hesitation: “Forgetting you’ manners are you, Dan Oldfield, he said and saw the grin close down. He thought of the way Suckling smiles, not showing any teeth, and tried it himself. It is

Throughout the entire book William has an extremely contradictory outlook on the Aborigines. At times he sees them as nothing but pests and animals, simply in the way or a part of nature that needed to be put up with, or as disgusting and inferior, even less than vermin. However, occasionally he sees past his veneer of self-deception to see the Aborigines as what they are - human beings with thoughts, feelings, culture, spirituality and wisdom, perhaps even surpassing that of his own country. This is something Thornhill is unable to handle, as to see the Aborigines as fellow human beings would be to not only renounce any claim to ‘his’ land, his most precious possession, but also damn himself by admitting to his own ignorance and comparative-uselessness. This is inner acknowledgement is what made Thornhill’s actions so atrocious to me. Deep down, Thornhill not only recognized the Aborigines as humans but also held a certain degree of respect for them. Thus everything that Thornhill does, be it giving demeaning names (“…his heavy face had a brooding look about it that was less alarming once he was called Black Dick”) to participating in a slaughter, is not only inexcusable but hundreds of times worse than if it was someone like Smasher, who simply doesn’t see the Aborigines as real humans. Through