What Is The Animal They Eat In Rabbit Proof Fence

Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence | Symbols

Symbols in Follow the Rabbit-Proof Contend are frequently used to showcase the different, ofttimes opposing cultural perspectives of the British versus the indigenous peoples of Australia.

The Rabbit-Proof Fence

The rabbit-proof fence has symbolic force that ways different things to different people. To the British settlers who build it, the fence is a assuming technological advance that will save Western Australia from a tidal incursion of rabbits (introduced to the continent past the British themselves). The notion that barbed wire would work against burrowing rabbits is laughable. So is the fact that past the time the contend was built, Western Commonwealth of australia was already full of rabbits. To the modern reader, therefore, the fence is a symbol of humanity'south misplaced trust in its ability to control nature. The fence is too symbolic of the racism that British colonial control uses to divide the land into whites and natives.

To Molly, Gracie, and Daisy, the fence ways almost the reverse of what the British think of it. "We'll find the rabbit-proof debate and follow that all the mode home," Molly assures her cousins. For her, the argue is a symbol of security. Since Molly'southward father is a debate inspector, she knows very well that the fence extends northward to Jigalong. Although the girls walk 500 miles before Molly finds the contend, they have absolute confidence that this landmark will ultimately make them safe.

To the British, the fence is meant to keep something out; to Molly and her cousins, information technology'southward meant to bring them back in.

Nature

Molly and her cousins think of a cat, and all of nature, as potential nutrient and sustenance, viewing specific fauna species very differently from the mode the British do. The girls are virtually starving when they kill and consume the cat. They girls also eat emu and cockatoo chicks. For the girls, there is little stardom between domestic and wild fauna. This is true for their ancestors in Chapter two, who see cipher wrong with killing a rancher's sheep as a repast for themselves.

At the same time, the girls take delight in the mammals and birds they pass as they travel. Birdsong wakes them in the mornings and surrounds them all day long; Molly notices it when the finch and cockatoo sounds of her dwelling are replaced by "black and white Willie wagtails and other beautiful birds." The girls recognize of the trees they pass: banksia, paperbarks, marri gums. The girls delight, also, in the cute wildflowers they discover on the heathlands. When they come across some bushland that's been burned, they know that in a week, "this charcoal landscape would ... come up alive and be a green wilderness again, full of cute flowers and animals that are wonderfully and uniquely Australian." Flowers and birdsong seem to sustain their spirits as much as bodily food sustains their bodies.

The British see Australian fauna and establish life in another way entirely. They are disappointed by it. "Where is the Arcadian land that nosotros heard so much about, the land of rustic paradise?" demands a London businessman. In the same chapter, the author shows Swan River Colony as the settlers run into information technology: "The terrain appeared unproductive—thick, tangled creepers grew underfoot." For the settlers in this affiliate, at that place's something distasteful about a landscape so unlike from theirs.

Pilkington Garimara portrays British-introduced animals in a consistently negative manner because they are destroying native abundance, just as the British colonizers are doing. Sheep and cattle do more than destroy Australia'southward vegetation; they tempt Ancient hunters whose hunting grounds have been appropriated for British ranches. She seems troubled, as well, by the disconnect between the British and their animals. For case, a new settler looks forward to the day his foxes will take reproduced enough that he tin start hunting them for sport.

The writer also portrays British rabbits as a form of natural disaster. The rabbits reproduce so rapidly that the British spend enormous try on building ineffective fences to proceed them out. The rabbits are a perfect symbol of the sick-advised fashion the British attempt to colonize their new continent.

Burn

In this book, burn down is rarely presented as a destructive force. Rather, it represents a take a chance for people to congregate and communicate. Paradoxically, fire too provides food every bit well equally a means for cooking information technology. Kundilla recalls the contempo fires he and his clan set to flush out game. Yellagonga's tribe gathers effectually the fires "waiting anxiously to hear what he had to tell them." At the social gatherings called corroborees, scores of dancing feet "[boot] up the dust in the moonlight around the glowing fires." And Molly and her cousins are untroubled by the sight of fire-blackened bushland. They know rain will revive it and bring beauty back to the landscape.

Molly and her cousins are skilled at building fires, but they have also learned to be conscientious to build them in holes they've dug and to encompass the ashes before leaving. Burn is as essential for these girls every bit it is for their families, but now it brings the threat that they might be discovered. As with so much of their native civilisation, they must hibernate their fires from the British.

Native Worldview

Linguistic communication

The Aboriginal characters in this book often speak their native language, and the author uses native terms throughout the story. Native language is not translated in the story itself, simply in a glossary at the end of the book. This narrative option heightens the sense of distance between the indigenous people and the colonizers and likewise underscores the differences between the ii cultures. By asking non-native speakers to seek out the significant of untranslated words, the glossary itself becomes a symbol of the try required to span cultures.

Walkabout

Walkabout is an English language term for a spiritual journey. Because the word has come to be associated with the disparagement of the Aboriginal people, information technology's gradually being replaced by the phrase temporary mobility. The event is an important part of Aboriginal culture and history and an important ritual that symbolizes the passage from childhood to maturity. In this ritual, a boy age 10 to xvi makes a solo pilgrimage across the Australian landscape, fending for himself in the wilderness for every bit long as vi months. Elders in the group decide when each boy is set up to make his walkabout.

From early childhood, boys are given special instruction to prepare them for their journey. A boy may travel hundreds of miles alone, killing animals for meat, seeking out edible plants, and discovering h2o supplies. If shelter is desired, the pilgrim makes his own. While walking, the traveler is meant to dirge traditional songlines that help him map his route.

Walkabout is traditionally a male ritual, just the three runaway girls in this book perform their ain version of a walkabout. Their journeying home demands exactly the aforementioned skills that would be required of boys, and information technology requires only every bit much courage. Like boys on walkabout, the three girls are severely tested by the countryside through which they travel. The rabbit-proof fence is their version of a songline: information technology guides them home. The girls' claiming may be fifty-fifty greater than it would be for boys: they have not been prepared for such a journey, and they face the constant threat of existence caught and returned to the settlement they're fleeing.

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