Dumby Red and Blacky's Mum Characters Analysis (Deadly, Unna? by Phillip Gwynne Book Analysis)

📌Category: Books
📌Words: 955
📌Pages: 4
📌Published: 02 April 2022

Why is it that most of us instantly take a likening and connect to a specific fictional character? It's because of the author's talent of bringing the characters alive by describing their personalities and visual traits in-depth, making them either lovable or disrespected. Phillip Gwynne is an author who's able to bring characters to life. His book, Deadly Unna is a heartfelt and sad adventure novel. The story is set in a coastal town in South Australia. There are two sides of the town, one side is called the point, which is where the Aboriginal community claimed, and the port where the white community claimed. The main character in this story is Gary Black who goes by the name of Blacky. He is a skilful player in soccer and stands against the racism that lurks around the port. The point of this article is to introduce some characters and analyse their characteristics, values, attitudes, and beliefs. As well as the aesthetic and stylistic features. The two characters that this article will analyse are Dumby Red and Blacky's mum.  

Dumby Red is characterized as an Aboriginal who lives at the point. He's an amazing team player and a kind friend to Blacky. Due to his kindness, he is a loved and respected character. This shows that he has a strong value for family, teamwork, and mateship. His attitudes and beliefs are the same as a teenager, as he constantly fixes his hair and believes he's good with girls. Unfortunately, since the stories set around the 1970s racism was still around and so we can visualise that Dumby would've lived separated from the white people. A quote that represents Dumby's characteristics is "Mark Arks getting B.O.G. It's bullshit. That's Dumby's trophy." (P-133) This positions the reader to view how racism affects Dumby's daily life and helps them comprehend his struggles living in the white community. Another quote that shows the issue with racism in this town is "Yea,' said Dezza, 'play with fire and ya gunna get burnt." (P-206) This quote consists of metaphor as Dezza compares his actions with the result of what occurs when playing with fire. Essentially the main point is that these quotes demonstrate the town's low respect for the first nations people.  

Dumby Red is also represented as a loyal, compassionate, and outgoing person to his friends and family. Gwynne writes about Dumby in a way that makes the readers instantly like his character as he is portrayed as friendly and courageous. His confident demeanour is shown through the following quote: "Now Dumby Red had Mad Dog in a headlock" (P-28) This quote shows Dumby's courage as he helped Blacky fight against Mad Dog even though it was dangerous. Imagery is used in this quote to help the reader visualise an image of what Dumby was doing to Mad Dog. This positions the reader to view Dumby as a helpful and loyal friend to Blacky as well as extremely brave for defending him. Another quote that shows Dumby's compassionate side is "'Didn't think you was coming,' said Dumby. 'But I bagsed you this chair just in case.'" (P-114) This quote positions the reader to view his beliefs and attitudes as it shows how thoughtful he is towards his friend.

Blacky's mother is a part of the white community who lives in the Port. She's a mother of 8 children and a housewife to an alcoholic man who treats her horribly and is rarely around for his children. Blacky's mum is one of the very few likeable characters, as she values her family more than anything, is an extremely caring mother, and is an incredibly wise wife. A quote that defines her characteristics is, "It was late, probably past midnight, but Mum would stay up until he came home, so she could serve him for dinner. She always did this." (P-83) This quote positions the reader to view Blacky's mother as a dedicated wife. Gwynne portrays blacky's mum as a dedicated housewife with the use of these quotes. "Mum was out the back, an empty clothes basket on her hip." (P-204) This is an example of imagery, as it positions the reader to view the mother as a domestic housewife as she's completing daily chores that a household woman would. "His poor mother'" (P-204) This quote represents that Blacky's mum is extremely thoughtful as she's putting herself into Dumby's mother's shoes and she feels for her. However, despite her kindness, she's still a part of the white community. Therefore, Blacky's mum kindly reworded her words to make it sound less racist, but it still exposed her intentions in what she told Blacky. "I understand why you want to go, dear. But I don't think you'd be welcome. It's for the out there at the Point. It's their business, not ours.'" (P-204) Positioning the reader to understand her beliefs and attitudes towards the community.   

Furthermore, Blacky's mum is also represented as a smart confident woman, a quote that demonstrates this characteristic is "Mum says run in from the side and jump late." And "Like I told you, my mum was a fair-dinkum tactical genius." These quotes demonstrate how other characters view her intelligence. Another quote that displays her intelligence is "Mum was really tough on stuff like that. She'd pounce on it like a cat on a mouse" (P-33) An aesthetic feature that has been used here is simile as Blacky is comparing her to a cat pouncing on a rat. Overall, we see here that her values, attitudes, and beliefs position the reader to view her as a helpless wife who only has control over a few things. But despite all that, she is very hopeful and confident in her daily life.   

Essentially, we can see that these two characters are extremely vital to the story one more than the other. They are both very loved characters in 'Deadly Unna.' Furthermore, in comparison from Dumby red to Blacky's mother, Dumby red is from the point which is the Aboriginal community and Blacky's mum is from the port, which is the white community. This is juxtaposing the two characters, as it's differing their values, attitudes, and beliefs.

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