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
The farmers in Kiewarra (in Southeastern Australia) are used to death because of the harsh droughts in the summer. One year, however, the conditions get particularly bad due to the weather pattern El Niño. The flies feast on the corpses—one body in a clearing, one in the hallway of a farmhouse, and one in the bedroom. In the middle of the farmhouse full of dead bodies, a live baby cries out.
The book’s prologue focuses on the setting before naming any of the characters, suggesting how important the setting is to the story. The prologue establishes how precarious life is in the rural community of Kiewarra, where a change in the weather can have a massive impact on the local economy—with potentially deadly results. The prologue does not imply that the drought directly killed the victims, but it draws a connection by comparing their bodies to the carcasses of animals that are a direct result of the drought.
Themes
