Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Dry, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Human Cost of Climate Change
Justice
Urban vs. Rural
Friendship
Summary
Analysis
Falk and Sergeant Raco go to visit Sullivan at his fields. Sullivan’s place is messy and full of knick-knacks—his Gran lives there, and all the objects make her feel better and help her hold on to her failing memory. The partly senile Gran asks Sullivan where his father is, but Sullivan reminds her that he died a couple years ago. While Sullivan gets tea, Gran asks Falk and Raco if they’ve come to talk about Luke and if Sullivan is also in trouble. Falk says he doesn’t know any reason yet why Sullivan would be in trouble. Sullivan then returns with tea.
Like Deacon, Gran also seems to be showing signs of dementia. The increasing frailty of Kiewarra’s older residents helps convey the inevitable march of time. Their memory loss shows how the past and present mix together in Kiewarra, where the death of Ellie 20 years ago still reverberates into the present. Perhaps the memory loss also suggests that while events like the death of Ellie linger in Kiewarra long after they happen, eventually people will forget them, however shocking they might have been when they first happened.
Themes
Falk and Sergeant Raco tell Sullivan they’re just clearing up loose ends. Sullivan feels guilty because if he’d known what Luke was about to do, he wouldn’t have let him just leave (since they were culling rabbits together right before the murders). He explains that because of the drought, the rabbits were destroying his crops, so he asked for Luke’s help in eliminating them. Sullivan gave Luke shotgun shells for the job, but Sullivan also uses Winchester (not Remington) bullets. Sullivan says Luke seemed normal.
Sullivan kills the rabbits on his property because they prevent him from being able to grow and sell crops. The idea of killing for money seems to relate to Luke’s death in some way, and Luke’s participation in the rabbit culling seems to suggest that Luke too was willing to take harsh measures against rabbits for the sake of protecting crops. The shooting of rabbits provides perhaps the most vivid image of humanity’s sometimes warlike struggle against nature in Kiewarra.
Themes
While culling rabbits, Sullivan told Luke about how his Gran’s health is failing. Luke said women cause problems and that there’s “always something happening” with Karen, but he later said that his problems with Karen weren’t that serious. Luke then emptied his shotgun to give the remaining ammunition back to Sullivan. He told Sullivan that he didn’t have time for a beer, then he took his ute home.
Sullivan’s story seems to imply that there was some sort of conflict brewing between Luke and Karen. Still, Raco and Falk have their own suspicions about Sullivan, and so it’s also possible that Sullivan is trying to mislead them to redirect suspicion away from himself. In many ways, the whole investigation hinges on Luke’s character, with Falk and Raco wanting to believe that Luke was fundamentally a good person but fearing that he might not have been.
Themes
In the present, Sullivan tells Falk and Sergeant Raco that that was the last he saw of Luke, and the next thing he knew, the Clyde police were coming to see him and ask about Luke. Falk asks Sullivan if anyone else came by the evening of the murder. Sullivan says no, it was just him and Gran, but as Sullivan says this, Falk thinks he sees the half-asleep Gran jolt up in surprise.
While Gran’s jolt of surprise could be innocuous, particularly in the context of a mystery novel, it seems like a sign that Sullivan is lying about something. Gran’s dementia means that she isn’t able to conceal her thoughts as skillfully as Sullivan. Because The Dry is less about a single mystery and more about the experience of a whole community, this particular plot thread remains a cliffhanger for a while as Falk and Raco investigate other angles and visit other parts of Kiewarra
Themes
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