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Chapter 17
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Terra Nullius, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Human Nature
Colonial Violence
Freedom and Bondage
Homeland
Hope
Summary
Analysis
Paddy, who isn’t just a human but also an Aboriginal man, teaches the refugees the ancestral skills of his people, like hunting. Esperance is a skilled hunter. Whenever her other duties allow, she heads out into the bush with the other women to search for rabbits or any small game they can find, which they cook and share as a communal meal each night.
If the humans are better equipped to survive in the outback than the Settlers, the Indigenous humans of the Australian continent are even better equipped, because their culture has survived tens of thousands of years—and a previous colonial incursion. Australia is their home. But it’s Esperance’s too, even though she’s White—as she shows with her hunting skills.
Active
Themes
One afternoon, Johnny Star accidentally stumbles onto Esperance’s hunting party. The women immediately spring into defensive positions. Johnny tries to talk them down—a harder task than he’d anticipated, because none of them has heard of Johnny Star the outlaw—but they don’t trust him. They only relent when Tucker, Crow Joe, Deadeye, Dip, Dap, and Jacky emerge from the surrounding trees. With other humans seemingly vouching for him, Esperance listens, but she doesn’t relax at all until Tucker talks Johnny into handing over his arms.
Yet again the book reminds readers that Johnny’s Settler status only means something in the context of Settler society. Out here in the bush, he’s at the bottom of the social hierarchy and must rely on the protection of his human friends to survive. If anything, he and the other Settlers are less capable of survival on Earth than the humans they deem brutes.
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Themes
Esperance brings the outlaw gang back to the camp, where they’re greeted by eight burly defenders. Esperance orders the outlaws to submit to a search and to turn over their weapons. They agree. Then, much to her surprise, when she orders others to tie up Johnny, the humans insist on being bound in solidarity.
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Themes
Back in the city, Devil is nearly beside himself with rage over the time and expense Jacky’s escape has cost him. But then he realizes that the Department for the Protection of Natives doesn’t have to foot the whole bill anymore, not now that Jacky and the outlaw Johnny Star have joined forces.
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Themes
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Back in the refugee camp, Johnny spends a great deal of time talking to the children. None of the young, free humans have ever seen a Toad before. Johnny feels torn between his affection for humans and the pressing need to avoid teaching these children to trust Settlers—because that means certain enslavement if not death. Mostly, then, he tells them about his outlaw days. And when he tells stories from the darker past—from his days as a trooper—he’s careful to diminish his role in the Settlers’ atrocities.
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Themes
Johnny remains imprisoned for far longer than Tucker, Jacky, and the others, who’ve been released out of necessity to join in the hunting parties. Johnny wishes the refugees would free him, so he could help, too. And eventually, they do. One day, Esperance comes on orders from the council of elders to release Johnny. Her words make it clear that Johnny still has a lot to prove to her. And when she comes close enough to cut the bindings on his hands, he sees the fear in her eyes. But she frees him anyway. Johnny promises he won’t hurt a single person in the camp, even in self-defense.
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Themes
Back at the mission school, Father Grark struggles to find evidence of abuse. Sister Bagra is much more cunning than he thought. All he has are his suspicions, which are based in the children’s odd demeanors and the inexplicable metal boxes on the school grounds. But then one night, as he enjoys his daily bath, Sister Mel comes to the window and hurriedly whispers the truth to him. She tells him that when children die because of Sister Bagra’s punishments, the local Settler doctor lies about it on their death certificates. When Grark asks if Mel wrote the letter, she confesses that she did not. Although she knows what Sister Bagra is doing is wrong, she was too fearful to tell the truth.
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The refugees’ latest camp sits near the remains of an ancient watering hole. It attracts birds, many of which are nearly extinct now, thanks to the Settlers’ animals. Esperance comes here when she needs some space from the noisy camp and its demands. On this day, she’s considering how well Grandfather and Johnny get along, despite the enmity between their species. Maybe, she thinks, it’s because they both used to be soldiers. She’s still lost in thought when she hears a magpie’s warning cry from the bush. She clicks an emergency signal back to camp on her walkie-talkie, then silently tiptoes forward to investigate.
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