Duty and Sacrifice Theme Analysis

Blacky resents any expectations placed upon him by his coach or his town in the beginning of Deadly, Unna?. For Blacky, duty means unfair sacrifice, such as putting himself in the way of physical harm in the grand final just because his coach expects him to. However, after Blacky must confront the injustice of Dumby’s death, he realizes that sacrifice is required to do what’s right. Through making sacrifices, such as going out to the Point alone to fulfill his duty to his dead friend, Blacky learns that not only does taking responsibility cost him less than he fears, he is also happier doing what is just.

Blacky’s position on his football team is a “ruck,” the most important position in Australian Rules Football. Blacky was initially the second ruck, but after the first ruck is disqualified for being too old, Blacky moved up in position and therefore the hopes of the entire team rest upon his shoulders. Blacky believes these expectations to be unfair, given that he didn’t ask for the whole town to be counting on him. His resentment of the town’s expectations shows his fear of duty to others. One can see how Blacky’s fear of responsibility might stem from watching the destructive effects of immense duty on his mother. Blacky’s mother takes on all the responsibility for caring for the family, doing all the cooking and cleaning for a household of ten while her husband stays out drinking. She has lost all her teeth because, Blacky believes, during her pregnancies her children absorbed her body’s calcium, an idea that symbolizes the extreme sacrifices she has made for her family. Blacky’s father represents the opposite attitude toward responsibility from Blacky’s mother. He stays out drinking all night and he doesn’t show up to any of his children’s important events, including Blacky’s football games. Blacky criticizes his father for failing to sacrifice his own time to fulfill the duties of fatherhood. With these two extremes, one sacrificing so much time and energy she is withering away and the other shamefully avoiding responsibility altogether, one could see why Blacky fears any external expectations that come his way. In general, his behavior shows how one can resent duty if they think the only possible outcomes are complete personal sacrifice or total failure.

As Blacky witnesses the pervasive and harmful racism of his town, however, he realizes it’s his duty to confront discrimination and honor his dead friend. This shows how when faced with a great injustice, one can no longer avoid responsibility, even at personal cost to oneself. Blacky decides to cover up the racist graffiti on his town’s pier because adults like his neighbor Darcy are always saying that they should do something about problems like the graffiti, without explaining who “they” exactly refers to. Blacky realizes that using the word “they” is a way for people to shift responsibility onto some unknown other person, rather than sacrificing their own time and energy to solve a problem like the graffiti. Blacky’s realization shows his development as a character, as he realizes denying responsibility only allows society’s problems to continue. Blacky realizes it’s his duty to cleaning up the graffiti, because he has time to spare, unlike the unknown them. Blacky follows through on his convictions and paints over the racist graffiti, even though he knows his father will punish him for using his paint. This shows a significant change in Blacky’s character, as not only does he willingly take on responsibility, he does so at great personal cost to himself. Through this change, the novel suggests that responsibility eventually becomes unavoidable, no matter how much one might wish to escape it.

Blacky believes that his team has an obligation to honor Dumby at his funeral, but his coach says the circumstances of Dumby’s death, given that the shooting stirred racial tensions between the Port and the Point, go beyond football. Blacky’s friends and teammates agree with the coach, choosing to ignore their duty to their teammate because of the sacrifices that might come with defying their community’s segregation. Blacky decides, however, that his obligation to Dumby is greater than his own discomfort with going to the Point alone, and that it also has to come before his wish to please both his father and his love interest, Cathy. After attending Dumby’s funeral and feeling a sense of peace at his coffin, Blacky acknowledges that not only did he survive the sacrifices he had to make to go to the funeral, he is happy he chose to fulfill his duty to his friend. Unlike his parents, Blacky finds a way to fulfill his duties that is both responsible and personally satisfying.

By the end of the novel, Blacky realizes not only that one must embrace personal duty in order to overcome society’s problems, but also that sacrifice will leave one happier for doing what is right. Blacky overcomes the fear of responsibility instilled by the opposing examples of his parents because he is confronted by an injustice he cannot ignore. His friendship with Dumby and Dumby’s possibly racially-motivated death call Blacky to acknowledge his duty and make sacrifices for what is truly important.