Previous
Chapter 6: Knowing fish
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Carpentaria, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Indigenous Identity and Colonialism
Nature and Civilization
Family Conflict
Time, History, and Fate
Storytelling
Summary
Analysis
Norm’s fish room has always been peculiar. For years he has believed that his masterful taxidermy is the handiwork of a spirit using him as a vessel. Many, many years earlier, he saw strange ghostly light in the fish room one night, and after that he became convinced that it was stealing and recording people’s secrets—secrets he carefully tried to avoid seeing. The room distracted him from his work for a time. Then, a storm destroyed the fish room and after he built a new one, Norm found himself able to work again.
The fish room and Norm’s idiosyncratic taxidermy practice highlight the respect he feels toward the natural world. His skills and gifts—both in fishing and in preserving prize catches—are a direct outflow of this respect. Note the room’s vulnerability to the weather. Nothing—not a house, not a room, not a person—can be meaningfully cut off from their connection to the wider world, the book suggests. In contrast, the White residents of Desperance live at odds with the natural world and resort to supernatural means (the net) to protect themselves from it rather than to connect with it.
Active
Themes
Norm loves the way the winter’s southeasterly winds make the Number One house—and especially the fish room—sing. His family and neighbors hate the noise, which they attribute to ghosts or evil spirits. In addition to the wind, a chorus of crickets sings from the shadows in unearthly melodies that Norm alone can hear. He theorizes that the hole in the ozone layer had somehow given them mystical powers. Before she ran off, Angel Day had no interest in his theories. Sometimes Norm and Angel would fight in the yard, in full view of passers-by. Angel would complain about the cricket noise, and he’d retort that she must have contracted a sexually-transmitted disease that makes her overly sensitive to sound.
In contrast to his White neighbors, Norm welcomes the outside world into his home as a guest. This is the kind of respect for and connection to the natural world that the book holds up as an example of the right way to live. Angel doesn’t hear the same things that Norm hears, but readers should remember that even before she left, she was far more interested in embracing elements of White colonial culture than Norm, like the clock and the Virgin Mary statue she found at the dump and used to decorate. Colonial culture contributes to the strife in the Phantom family.
Active
Themes
In truth, Norm is more than half deaf, and after his friend Elias once pointed that out, he made a great show of writing an addendum to his will, requesting that his eardrums be preserved and studied by science. After the storm knocked down the fish room, Angel Day insisted that he rebuild it at a remove from the main house, connected by a roofless corridor.
Active
Themes
On the day that Will leaves Elias in the fish room, the crickets sing unnervingly loudly. Norm fears calamity but is unprepared to find the corpse of his friend in the corner when he finally opens the door. He cries out in grief, bringing his daughters Janice, Patsy, and Girlie running. They think he’s having a heart attack. Then they see the dead body and swing into action. It’s only a matter of time, they conclude, before the police arrive, and they'll have to get rid of the evidence if they don’t want their father to be investigated for murder yet again. They kindle a bonfire in the yard and start dragging Elias’s body toward it. Norm yells at them to stop, fearful that the smoke drifting toward Uptown will draw Constable E’Strange’s attention.
Active
Themes
Get the entire Carpentaria LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
The sound of Kevin convulsing on the bed to which Janice, Girlie, and Patsy have strapped him (his sisters do this sometimes when he’s out of control) draws the family back inside. He’s in danger of choking on his own saliva and vomit. Girlie and Patsy struggle to remove the restraints while Norm chides them for tying Kevin up.
Active
Themes
Kevin wishes he could tell his family about the vision (or maybe it was a dream) he had that morning, in which Will visited him. It felt so real, especially when Will placed his hand on Kevin’s head. But he doubts that anyone, even Girlie (with whom he’s closest) will believe him. Kevin decides to do as the Will-apparition told him, to hang on and wait. Maybe his brother will come back and rescue him.
Active
Themes
Afterward, in the kitchen, Norm berates his daughters. Finding Elias’s body easily makes this one of the worst days of his life. He still wants to call the police. A frustrated Girlie still thinks that’s a bad idea. Doesn’t her father understand how hard it is for her to bear the gossip, taunt, and ridicule of others on account of his questionable reputation? Besides, as she tells Norm, the police don’t care about Aboriginal people’s truth.
Active
Themes
But it’s too late. Constable Truthful is at the door. Janice and Patsy try to make the policeman comfortable. Girlie, who despises Truthful, stands aloof. Truthful is in love with her. After Truthful asks Norm a few questions, but before Norm can explode with anger or say anything potentially incriminating, Janice observes that another storm is about to arrive. They should shut up the house. Girlie takes the hint and gives Truthful a signal to follow her to her room. She knows he won’t leave before he gets what he came for—her. He’s been finding excuses to come to the Phantom house for a long time, and it always ends up in her bedroom. Things would be different if Donny and Inso were around, but they’re not. Truthful is excited at the prospect of having sex with Girlie, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t also serious about his investigation.
Active
Themes
