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Chapter 37
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
In the entry for giya-rra-ya-rra (“afraid to speak”), Albert recalls falling in love with Elsie. A university teacher, she and some students came to Tent Town (a shantytown near the Mission) to talk to Aboriginal people about human rights. Hearing indigenous children weren’t allowed to swim in the public pool, the group gave them money for admission. Albert tagged along and listened as the pool attendant refused them entry. A White woman told a student that the only good Aboriginal children are “dead one[s].” Because the students were filming, the attendant finally relented, and the children swam. Elsie was laughing and unafraid. Years later, laws have changed but people haven’t. But Albert is no longer afraid to speak out against injustice.
Albert’s first memory of Elsie showcases her passion for activism and fearlessness when it came to confronting injustice. It’s worth noting that their initial interaction took place at a public pool, invoking water as a symbol of shared trauma. The incident at the pool demonstrates the continuing effects of colonial racism, as Aboriginal Australians continue to suffer due to racism in modern times. While this victorious memory has made Albert more willing to take action for change, present-day Elsie seems to have given up the hope she once had for making a difference.
Active
Themes
Drought has changed Albert’s homeland, driving people to suicide, divorce, and widyali (“alcohol”). He knows drugs and drink only provide temporary relief from the pain of helplessness so many Aboriginal Australians experience. Colonizers once isolated Albert’s people from one another and then they put them ngumbaay-dyil (“all together in one place”). But even together, they have been isolated and convinced to turn on one another like inmates. Albert knows that his daughters sensed that isolation growing up “around sad ghosts on the Mission.” Even so, Albert believes his people will ngiyawaygunhanha (“always exist”) beyond the living and the dead.
