Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Deadly, Unna?, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Race, Injustice, and Action
Courage and Masculinity
Duty and Sacrifice
Teamwork and Family
Summary
Analysis
The McDermotts are a wealthy family who have a summer home in the Port. They have expensive jewelry and a boat. Their sons, Andrew and Craig, are about Blacky’s age and all the local girls think they’re attractive. Blacky admits that Andrew and Craig are better at talking to girls than he is. The McDermotts go to a private school called Kings College and support the school’s football team, but Blacky doesn’t understand how people as stupid as the McDermotts could go to college.
The McDermotts represent the wealth and privilege Blacky does not have access to, coming from a poor family living in rural Australia. Blacky resents them for both their wealth and their attractiveness. He also shows his ignorance of the larger world by assuming that intelligence is all that matters in determining whether or not an individual goes to college.
Themes
Even though Blacky doesn’t like the McDermotts, he still hangs out with Andrew and Craig because interesting events happen around them in the summer. Every year, Blacky promises himself he’s not going to spend time with the McDermotts, and every year he breaks that promise. Additionally, Cathy is staying with them for the summer and Blacky wants to spend time with her. He figures it’s easy to break a promise one makes to oneself.
Blacky’s breaking of his promise not to hang out with the McDermotts foreshadows the breaking of his promise to quit the football team. Perhaps Blacky has not told anyone about his promise of quitting because he finds it easier to go against his own personal convictions than to show others his weaknesses.
Themes
