The Human Cost of Climate Change Theme Analysis

Although Jane Harper’s The Dry doesn’t explicitly mention climate change, it is an important context for the novel, where a new, drier climate causes mass poverty in the rural Australian town of Kiewarra. The novel doesn’t make scientific arguments and only indirectly references politics. Instead, it focuses on how a hotter, drier climate directly affects humans, showing how the drought destroys the local economy, tearing the small community of Kiewarra apart. What unites the characters in Kiewarra is that many of them have money problems, particularly struggling farmers like Luke, Dow, and Sullivan. The drier climate means that the lifestyle that the previous generation of farmers like Gerry and Barb enjoyed is no longer feasible. Perhaps the clearest sign of this change is the local river: though it once flowed strong and was an important local landmark, it has since dried up.

At the end of the novel, school principal Whitlam, (who readers have just learned is guilty of the murders around which the plot centers) threatens to throw down a lighter, which would potentially spark a blaze that would engulf the whole town. This scene shows how precarious life has become in Kiewarra, where just one lighter could destroy the whole town. While Whitlam’s own money problems relate more to his gambling addiction than the drought, his extreme actions, including embezzlement and a triple homicide, seem to be related to the atmosphere in Kiewarra, where the desperate economic situation drives some people to act rashly. The constant references to farmers culling rabbits that eat their crops show how the community has devolved into something like a warzone, where people compete with animals for the scarce remaining resources. Like most mystery novels, The Dry builds intrigue through unexpected connections, but the novel takes an ecological approach to this genre convention, illustrating how a seemingly small change like hotter, drier weather can lead to a breakdown in society, destroying the economic backbone of small communities and leading to violence.