Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Turning, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Trauma and Memory
Family, Violence, and Love
Addiction
Belonging and Escape
Regret and Forgiveness
Summary
Analysis
The narrator of “Immunity” is reflecting on her time as a high-school girl on a southbound train with a boy (Vic Lang) she liked. He is 15, wearing an army uniform. After a few hours, she works up the courage to go sit with him, even though the train car is mostly empty. She asks him about the book he is reading, which he replies is mostly boring. She asks about the uniform, and he explains that he is a cadet. She presses him about the militarism of the cadets, asking if he was worried about being sent to Vietnam, but he focuses on the camping and craft aspects of it, and playfully defends the firearm training, too.
The narrator’s conversation with Vic is heavily influenced by the political environment of the time. Australia, which had only recently ceased participating in the Vietnam War, was in the midst of tremendous social upheaval. Like many other institutions, the cadets came under intense scrutiny and were even briefly abolished, as they were considered a violent, militaristic institution.
Themes
Vic asks the narrator of “Immunity” if she is going to Angelus, and she realizes that he does not know who she is. She is a year younger than him and has been watching him at school for some time now. Embarrassed, she lies and says she lives in City Beach. She observes him and reflects, revealing that she has watched him for some time, around town too, riding his bike down to the wharf. She has envisioned him as gentler than other boys and is off put by his enthusiasm for guns. She says so, and their conversation lapses into silence.
The narrator’s recollections of Vic, clearly from the same time period as “Long, Clear View,” form a striking contrast to what the reader already knows of Vic’s mental state. That a relatively careful observer could deduce nothing of how paranoid and afraid Vic was feeling indicates just how effectively—and dangerously—he has and continues to bottle up his emotions.
Themes
Vic tells the narrator of “Immunity” a story about a fellow cadet who was accidentally electrocuted. Continuing on the subject of death, he tells her about his experience on the firing range, when a white-hot bullet ricocheted and landed right next to him. To his mind, it was a sign of his immunity from death. She tells him that in that case she will stick close to him for the next school year, claiming that she is only just starting school in Angelus. She is full of embarrassment as she says this, recalling a day when she walked past his house and saw him by the window, holding what she thought was a broom or a hockey stick. When they arrive at the train station, a police car is waiting with the lights flashing. The boy rushes out; the narrator knows his father (Bob Lang) is a policeman. The narrator never spoke to him again but recalls that his sister (Kerry) was in the hospital for meningitis, and later died.
Vic’s story, and his claim that he is immune to death, while the boasting of a teenager, is darkly ironic in light of what is soon to come: the death of his sister. Vic is likely aware of this and brags not because he fully believes in what he is saying but because he wants to believe it. Placing Vic’s sister’s death in time, this chapter also suggests that this event too had a significant impact on Bob’s alcoholism and breakdown.
Themes
