Phillip Gwyne’s novel, “Deadly Unna?” explores how the main character Gary Black, a white boy from the “Port” also known as “Blacky” grows up by not agreeing to racism. Blacky experiences prejudice and friendship from both the aboriginal and white communities. Blacky begins to develop a greater tolerance for aborigines and their culture, and then he further attempts to apply this knowledge to the intolerant and prejudiced town in which he lives. The boy who helps him shift in his opinion of aborigines is a local aborigine named “Dumby Red”, who lives in the aboriginal missionary “The Point”. Dumby is of Blacky’s Football team and helps Blacky in various ways to become more tolerant. Throughout the book, Blacky learns many things about …show more content…

Blacky saw that his friends were being prejudiced towards Dumby and the whole town is prejudiced towards the aborigines and their culture.

Blacky’s thoughts and actions on Prejudice, Friendship and Growing up have developed into a more balanced position by the end of the year. Blacky was an immature little boy laughing at racist jokes but now he has matured into a young man driven by the prejudice in the town and his friendship with Dumby. Blacky shows this in his actions by not attending Cathy’s BBQ or going fishing with his dad and attending Dumby Red’s funeral at the Point with all the Aboriginals. This was a hard decision to make as Cathy would hate him and his father would declare him a gutless wonder for the rest of his life. There was a challenge in this as well as the aborigines might not want him there as he was a Goonya. Clarence states; “Hey, thanks for coming and all, brudda” (Ibid, p.229). This shows that even though Blacky wasn’t family he was just as close to Dumby as a friend or brother.

Gwyne’s novel, “Deadly Unna?” explores Blacky’s life and how he has made a priceless friendship with Dumby. Blacky mellows throughout the novel by disagreeing with racism and how prejudiced the town is towards Aboriginals. Blacky experiences many emotions throughout the novel and this culminates when Blacky attends Dumby’s funeral, thus showing his friendship with Dumby, Maturing to make his own decisions and how he is not