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Chapter 30
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
The tension between settlers and the Aboriginal Australians has grown so much Greenleaf fears for his own life. Despite growing Australian nationalism, the Aborigines Protection Board has begun taking Aboriginal children from their parents and sending them to state-run homes to be trained in compliance. Greenleaf insists this is slavery. Moreover, now that Britain has declared war on Germany, Greenleaf himself faces harassment and internment because he is of Prussian descent. He is repeatedly called to the police station, where the constable questions his loyalty. Knowing they will imprison him if he causes trouble, Greenleaf can no longer advocate for the Mission’s residents whose children are being stolen. His powerlessness provokes their contempt.
The rising tensions between the settlers and the Aboriginal people demonstrate how oppressive systems inevitably provoke violent resistance. Rather than remain impartial, the Aborigines Protection Board makes things worse by perpetrating child theft and enslavement. This suggests that colonial governments are always biased against the indigenous populations they seek to dominate. This power-hungry worldview also leads the government to oppress dissenting White citizens like Greenleaf. Though Greenleaf is ashamed of his inability to protect the Mission’s residents, he makes little effort to stand up to law enforcement and demand just treatment. While well-meaning, his activism is performative and ends when his own life is threatened.
Active
Themes
