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Chapter 11
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Yield, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Colonialism and Exploitation
The Power of Language and Cultural History
Family, Identity, and Belonging
Collective Trauma, Memory, and Guilt
Human Spirituality and the Natural World
Summary
Analysis
Reverend Greenleaf continues his letter to Dr. Cross, telling him how he established Prosperous Lutheran Mission for the Aboriginal inhabitants of Massacre Plains in 1880. At the time of writing, the Mission will be turned into a Station under the Aborigines Protection Board. Because Britain is waging war on Prussia and Germany, Greenleaf knows they intend to use the Aborigines as an “industrial labor force” instead of helping them. Greenleaf’s family immigrated to Australia from Prussia in 1841 as refugees fleeing persecution. There, they were given 50 acres and engaged with the wider English-speaking community. The family pledged their allegiance to Great Britain, who had colonized Australia.
Greenleaf’s phrasing implies his intentions for the Aboriginal Australians are purer than the government’s. In reality, both the Mission and the coming Station are forms of colonial oppression. Like Albert has said, the Mission’s rigid Christianity sought to strip Aboriginal Australians of their culture; the Station will do the same, while also exploiting their labor. Although Greenleaf immigrated to Australia as a refugee, he is still a colonizer who has oppressed Aboriginal Australians.
Active
Themes
When Greenleaf became a reverend, he traveled Australia’s interior and eventually discovered “the Blacks of Massacre Plains.” Witnessing the Aboriginal Australians’ poverty and suffering moved Greenleaf to try and help them. He offered his services to the community’s bishop and began living in a local hotel. The hotel’s landlady claimed he was the first Christian minister to express concern for the indigenous people. Greenleaf begged for God’s guidance, but he did not yet see himself as a missionary. Now, in light of the “dark deeds” he has discovered—the abuses White Christian colonizers have inflicted upon the Aboriginal Australians to steal their land—Greenleaf wishes he had never volunteered himself.
