Crow Country Essay Racism is a learned behaviour and is still a problem in Modern day Australia where Aboriginal culture is not always respected. Crow Country by Kate Constable is a time slip novel written in 2011 that follows the story of a girl named Sadie who moves to the small town of Boort. Boort is a special place, a story place, and home to Waa, the crow, who helps Sadie uncover the injustices from the past. She amends the town's mistakes and builds friendships that would have never happened without acceptance in addition to an understanding of Aboriginal culture. The book conveys ideas through characterisation in people like Lachie's friends and family who disregard the people who were there before them, and demonstrate racism through …show more content…
The ideas that racism is still present in modern Australia and justice is required to heal the wrongs of the past are displayed through conventions of the narrative genre to encourage readers to accept differences, respect other cultures, and hopefully give them a better perspective of the damage it can do. The novel Crow Country demonstrates the idea that racism is still present in Modern Australia through characterisation and social setting. This is evident through Lachie's friend, Jules' words which reflect how many people view differences in modern times. In the novel, the town is predominantly Caucasian, and races don't seem to mix often, so in chapter 10, the pub's silence is deafening as Sadie, Ellie, Walter, and David (a white woman and her daughter, and a black man and his nephew) walk into the pub. Almost everyone in the room greeted the group with a continuous glare from the moment they set foot in the building and, 'Sadie felt as if the whole pub had fallen silent, watching …show more content…
This is evident in the storyline when Sadie is expected to restore justice from a mistake that had been covered like a band-aid on a wound, by returning Jimmy's 'special things' so the misconduct from the past can finally be forgotten. In the novel, the plot is that Waa, the crow shows Sadie a story. Her duty is to mend past mistakes, return what has been stolen, and ultimately bring rightful punishment to those who broke the law. The crow continues to say,' When the Law is broken the world is broken. The circle must be joined again.' The crow's statement 'circle must be joined again' refers to fixing (joining) what has been broken (the law/ circle). In this case, the broken law is the death of Jimmy Raven, which created a painful bruise in the town that hasn't properly healed. In order to fix the mistakes, 'what was taken from the clever man must be returned.' meaning Jimmy's sacred objects must be brought back to him in the hope of finding equity. Furthermore, the crow goes on to say, ‘Find his special things. Find his body, bury him proper. Take him back to his own country.’ By returning Jimmy's sacred objects and burying him in his own country, Sadie can bring justice to the town and restore balance to the once innocent and beloved world. Therefore, narrative conventions such as the plot in the novel convey the idea that justice is