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Chapter 4
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The White Girl, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Colonial Violence
Dignity and Resilience
Loss
Love and Family
Power
Summary
Analysis
After leaving Henry’s, Odette and Sissy head into town to visit the post office. As they cross the footbridge, Sissy mourns the fact that she’ll never get to swim in the river like Odette did during her childhood, before White farmers stole its once-abundant waters to irrigate their fields. But the greed and short-sightedness of the White settlers apparently knows no bounds.
The river attests to the determination of White settlers to reshape the land to fit their needs rather than respecting it for what it had to offer. As a result, abundance has been lost and want is common. If, in contrast, the land’s Aboriginal inhabitants had been allowed to teach White settlers, everything and everyone—the White settlers, the Aboriginal inhabitants, the land itself—would be better off.
Themes
In town, Odette and Sissy run into one of Odette’s oldest friends, Millie Kahn. Millie’s father used to tame “brumbies,” wild ponies descended from the escaped livestock of White settlers. He went into business with a local White politician and stockyard owner, an association that shielded him and his children from the scrutiny of Welfare officers. Millie still lives in the house where she grew up, even though it’s slowly sinking into the poorly backfilled billabong on which it was built. She married an Afghani immigrant whose family used to work the caravan lines carrying goods across Australia’s interior desert. His name is Yusuf.
Millie’s story is different than Odette’s. While virtually all Aboriginal people suffered oppression due to their inferior social and legal position, that played out differently for everyone. In that context, however, note how it was Millie’s father’s proximity to a powerful White person that conferred benefits on his family. The implication is that he did what was necessary to survive and protect his own, and that there is dignity in that, no matter what it costs.
Themes
Calling Sissy “Blondie,” a nickname Odette hates, Millie asks about the bicycle. Odette says it was Sissy’s 13th birthday present. Millie says she wishes she’d had a bike that nice when she was 13. It would have made it easier to outrun the “Welfare fellas.” This piques Sissy’s curiosity, but Odette shoos her away before she can ask too many questions.
Odette hates Millie’s nickname for Sissy because it emphasizes the girl’s fair skin—pointedly reminding Odette (and readers) that there is more than one White ancestor in her family tree. And each White ancestor is a reminder of sexual violence, since none of these men married into the family. Furthermore, mixed-race children (often identified by the racially charged and biased terms of “half-caste,” “quarter-caste,” and the like) were targeted for assimilation on the assumption they’d have an easier time fitting in with White culture. Thus, the nickname also activates Odette’s deepest fears about Sissy’s vulnerability.
Themes
Privately, Millie suggests that Odette, whom Millie thinks looks ill, visit the town’s new physician. Talk of newcomers quickly turns to Sergeant Lowe. Although neither woman liked Bill Shea, at least he mostly left the Aboriginal people alone. Odette and Bill were friends for a short time after the Shea family arrived, but their friendship ended abruptly one afternoon when Bill’s mother returned home to find them wrestling in the front yard. After that, Bill and his sister rejected the Aboriginal children.
The book puts Sergeant Lowe and Doctor Singer into a group together as newly arrived White residents of Deane. Given Odette’s alarming interaction with Lowe, then, it makes sense she’d instinctively distrust the doctor too. Especially since her childhood experience with Bill Shea taught her how risky it is to trust fickle White friendliness. Henry, then, is the exception to the rule.
Themes
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Millie is particularly leery of Lowe because she’s heard gossip about the government sending aggressive officials out to quash Aboriginal dissent. There have been calls for civil rights accompanied by protests and demonstrations, although not in rural Deane. Yusuf’s cousin faced scrutiny from an aggressive police officer about her mixed-race grandchildren. She lied that they were “pure Afghans” like herself. Now the family is considering going into hiding.
Yusuf’s cousins are considering going into hiding to prevent the fair-skinned mixed-race children from being stolen as so many—including, possibly, those children’s parents—had been stolen in the past. It’s estimated that between 20,000 and 300,000 Aboriginal children were taken from their families between 1900 and the 1960s. The racist and infantilizing implication that Aboriginal people are incapable of raising children is impossible to miss.
Themes
The women part ways, with Millie going to the hardware store and Odette heading for the post office, where she mails her cards and cashes her most recent money order. The cashier counts out the money reluctantly, wondering aloud what an Aboriginal woman needs so much cash for.
The postal worker’s reaction underlines Odette’s marginalized status and shows how widespread racist assumptions about Aboriginal people’s capabilities—and rights—are.
Themes
After buying the groceries, Odette decides to visit the doctor. Sissy wants to ride up and down the street on her bicycle while she waits, but she knows Odette wouldn’t approve. She just sits on a bench near the now-defunct movie theater eating an apple. The poster for the last movie shown there, Imitation of Life, still hangs in a frame on the theater’s wall. Sissy didn’t see it, but she heard other girls at school recounting its plot. They said it was about a “part-Black girl” who spurns her Black mother so she can pass as White.
Although the book doesn’t specify why Sissy didn’t see the film herself, it’s reasonable to assume that the theater isn’t an integrated space—remember, technically Aboriginal people aren’t allowed into town without permission except on Saturday afternoons. The film Sissy describes came out in 1959. It follows two single mothers—one Black and one White—living in America and raising their daughters together. Invoking the film’s consideration of “passing” (when a light-skinned, mixed-race person presents themselves as White) reminds readers how arbitrary racial divisions are. The film also reminds readers how harmful and degrading racism is to both families and individuals, considering that the mixed-race daughter in the movie does reject her Black mother in order to pass as White.
Themes
In the doctor’s office, the neatly dressed, middle-aged doctor, Nathan Singer, greets Odette with unaffected courtesy. Odette, whose last experience with a White doctor was unpleasant and ineffective, feels nervous, but Dr. Singer listens carefully to her complaints and carries out a complete, professional physical exam. As he does, she notices the numbers tattooed on his forearm. Dr. Singer needs x-rays—which Odette can only get at the hospital in Gatlin—to properly diagnose her. He makes an appointment for her on the following Thursday. As he concludes the visit, Odette asks where he’s from. Poland, he says. She knows a little about what happened to Jewish people during World War II, but she doesn’t ask further questions.
There’s a strong contrast between the respectful way Doctor Singer treats Odette and the way every other White person in her life (except Henry) does. The book implies that he’s more civil at least in part because he’s personally experienced the devastating consequences of racism and genocidal beliefs as a Holocaust survivor. The book celebrates his survival and dignity while also setting him up as a good example for the humane treatment of others. Singer’s behavior pointedly reminds readers that the racist attitudes of Lowe and the postal worker aren’t inherent—these attitudes have been developed, socially constructed, and upheld. In other words, racism is a systemic evil.
Themes
Much to her dismay, when Odette emerges from the doctor’s office, Bill Shea and Sergeant Lowe are questioning Sissy. Odette insists that it’s time for her and Sissy to go home, but Lowe won’t let them go until he’s warned Odette that “change is coming.” Claiming that he’s only concerned about Sissy’s well-being, he warns Odette about the danger of letting a girl with her “potential slip back.” Shea silently observes with a hang-dog expression on his face. When they get home, Odette tells Sissy not to worry about “that policeman.” Sissy says she won’t, but Odette doesn’t believe her.
Although Lowe speaks grandly of assimilation as a noble goal, readers should know that in practice most Aboriginal people who were taken from their families and forcibly assimilated were not allowed to fully participate in White society. Most of the children who were trained and “placed out” of the residential schools spent their lives as servants and menial laborers for White society. Moreover, he betrays his Eurocentric biases here when he identifies Aboriginal culture as necessarily inferior, a step below what White culture represents. Shea’s reaction suggests that he’s nearly as powerless to resist Lowe as Sissy and Odette are, notwithstanding his greater legal rights.
Themes
