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In Phillip Gwynne’s novel “Deadly Unna?” the main character, Gary Black or “Blacky” as he is known amongst his small country town friends learns a lot about prejudice, friendship and growing up. He lives in a town where nothing much seems to really happen, but we see that, for Blacky, the separation between the white people of the Port and the black people of the point becomes more of a major issue in his life as the story progresses. Blacky’s story is greatly influenced by his new Aboriginal friend, Dumby Red. Through spending time with Dumby, Blacky starts to see life through his eyes and notices how much prejudice there is in his little town, and how easily people can make assumptions. He also learns a lot about friendship through Dumby, as he has to choose amongst friends and deal with his own home life. These experiences help Blacky to grow up with a more balanced view of the world and how he fits in it himself.
At the start of the book, prejudice in Blacky’s town is something everyone knows is there are too scared to acknowledge, let alone to stand against it individually. As time goes on we see that under the surface, prejudice is a major issue in the Port. This is mainly shown when Blacky figures out that it was Slogs who wrote the graffiti that affected him so much. For a while, even after Blacky has decided that Slogs was responsible, he doesn’t tell anyone because he feels that no-one would really care or even pay attention.
“Or I could Confront Slogs. Tell him I knew he was the one. And he’d probably say, ‘so what.’ It was hopeless.”(Gwynne, 1995, p253-254)
It is not hard to imagine how Blacky and the young people around him became so prejudiced, as it seems that even the adults of the town can be very quick to judge and believe the stories told at the pub. The pub is really the birth place and home for all of the prejudice in the town, with all of the men telling stereotypical stories and jokes.
“‘Hey’, said Big Mac. ‘Did...