Death, Loss and Grief

A major theme in Arnott’s Flames is death and the associated response to it by the various characters. Edith McAllister’s death sets in motion the central plot from where Levi and Charlotte have divergent responses which demonstrates the individuality of grief; Levi believes he has accepted his mother’s death and moved on, while Charlotte seeks comfort in ways he doesn’t understand. From Charlotte’s point of view, she is expressing her grief appropriately, screaming in the forest, trying to become one with the sky and ground, attempting to come to terms with her own similar destiny: to follow in her mother’s footsteps to reincarnation. Despite having a loving relationship, the siblings have never understood one another. If they had, they may have better supported one another through the early stages of their grief. Levi would have discovered that he hadn’t recovered from his mother’s death and that, like Karl and his seal, he had lost all purpose when his mother died. By the end of the novel, he has stopped trying to take matters into his own hands and seems to be in a position to listen to Charlotte. He also becomes open to the new experience as suggested with Nicola in which he starts to find new meaning beyond his grief.

Jack’s grief for the loss of his marriage to Edith and the relationships of his children began the moment Edith threw him out of their house after discovering he had manipulated her into their relationship. The double-edged sword for Jack was that in making Edith love him, and developing the ability to feel emotion as he became a father, he was setting himself up for pain when he eventually lost them. As immortal fire, Jack’s difficulty in summoning the energy to finish Edith’s cremation, his uncertainty as to whether she had forgiven him, and his distancing himself from Levi and Charlotte as they would eventually die also, give the sense of an eternal grief. The concept of unresolved or generational grief is extended with the reference to the lingering effects of the massacring of Indigenous Tasmanians, whose ‘pain was still there, the loss and fear, fury and sorrow, etched into the faces of the people who were being hunted in their own homeland’. Sometimes a grief is so powerful that it can be transferred between generations.

The graphic death of Karl’s seal, Karl’s ‘other half’, abruptly drew a line in the sand for Karl. He never fished for tuna again, being unable to partner with another seal and, although he raises a loving family with whom he shares himself generously, putting on a face for the world, he doesn’t regain new purpose by the end of the story but is continually haunted by the underwater clicks of the orcas. Karl’s situation demonstrates the depths and pervasiveness of grief but also the positive effects of significant others who can understand and be supportive, like his daughter Nicola, who chances that Karl may find new meaning through helping Levi find his. Compared to Karl’s story, the poignant narrative of the Cloud God learning she has lost the other half of her heart when the smoke from the burning pelt confirms the Esk God has died, lacks a sympathetic ally. Her deep and inconsolable sorrow, as she unleashes a monstrous storm that threatens to submerge the island, shows the cloud alone in her pain, detached from any significant others that could offer support. The detective seems to have experienced loss that is not fully explored, her cynicism hinting at past pain and a loss of hope. Unable to appreciate the beauty in nature, she has settled at a point where she is self-medicating with substances, and feels nothing.

Nicola and Charlotte’s appropriate responses to the mass wombat deaths contrast that of Allen’s, whose initial upset at the deaths morphs into callousness when he kills a wombat with a knife and feels no remorse. Allen’s change in behaviour may be attributed to his animalistic instinct as he transitions into a cormorant, however few animals are motivated to kill in the manner the wombats were killed, one of those animals being humans, who are capable of killing for reasons other than for food or territory, such as for pleasure. The Esk God’s musings about the fate of land and water gods, like now extinct Hunt God, or Tasmanian Tiger, and his rhetorical question as to ‘who could kill a river’, further demonstrates the accumulating negative impact of humans and their industry on other species of animals with which they share the land.

Thurston Hough’s death at the hands of river creatures is ultimately treated as insignificant by the residents of Avoca. A hateful man who treated everyone with disrespect, his treatment demonstrates that loss or grief is generally felt in connection to losing someone/something pleasant, someone who had given meaning to the people they leave behind.

A pragmatic view of  death is seen in the ranger’s wonder of nature, when he chooses to focus on the forest’s ability to regenerate new life after the bush fire, similar to fire’s realisation that it can die but it also can come back.

Death, Loss Grief Quotes

Our mother returned to us two days after we spread her ashes over Notley Fern Gorge. (Levi) Chapter 1

I wondered what form she would take when she returned to me … (Levi about Charlotte) Chapter 1

I started looking for a coffin, and I swore to bury her whole and still and cold. (Levi about Charlotte) Chapter 1

His other half lay sleeping beside him. (Karl and his seal after their first Oneblood kill) Chapter 2

They took turns gripping its tail in their teeth and flinging their heads left to right, over and over again, using the hard lid of the ocean to break Karl’s seal into ragged chunks of brown-red meat. (the orcas) Chapter 2

Soon the clicks would stop, and he would stop hearing his seal hit the sea, and an idea or direction or purpose would swim up at him. (Karl) Chapter 2

Charlotte will burn, tomorrow or in half a century, but she will burn. Chapter 3

Their mother was dead. What does it matter what form or sound her grief takes? Chapter 3

But the Esk God remained, and the Esk God thrived, for who could kill a river? Chapter 4

I am besieged in my own home by the creatures of the river. (Mr Hough) Chapter 5

I don’t feel much at all. (the detective) Chapter 6

But enough of Thurston Hough! He is as unpleasant in death as he was in life. (Mavis) Chapter 8

She split the face he showed the world, and drew his love towards her. (Nicola about her father’s smile) Chapter 10

In such a short time he had lived, learned, grown and died. (Fire) Chapter 12

And he couldn’t stay with any group of them for a long time, because he did not age. (Fire) Chapter 12

The pain was still there, the loss and fear, fury and sorrow, etched into the faces of the people who were being hunted in their own homeland. Chapter 12

In the end he could barely summon the energy to finish her cremation. He only managed it because he knew that it was what she wanted. (Fire) Chapter 12

Just like their mother, they would eventually die. And he did not want to be close to them when they did. (Jack about his children) Chapter 12

Only the cloud could have seen. And she was too busy weeping. (whether the flesh and feathered floating body of Allen Gibson was dead or alive) Chapter 14

Never again would he climb the dark mountain and stare up in hopeful worship. Never again would she feed his kingdom with her tears of lonesome love. (The Esk and Cloud Gods) Chapter 14

Family and Relationships

Flames uses a range of relationships, including family, friendship, and romantic, and a diversity of players, including humans, gods, animals and nature to explore connectedness, or disconnectedness, and interdependency. Although they don’t always understand one another, Levi and Charlotte retain the sibling love cultivated in them by their mother, a love that supported them through their father’s departure and eventually helps them move past their mother’s death. Jack’s perspective shows how relationships may become distorted when they are based on misconceptions; Jack perceives the ‘unbridgeable gap’ that exists between himself and Levi to originate from their differences but, as the third-person narrator explains, their distance from each other is because they are so similar. Conversely, understanding in relationships brings a closeness, such as in the relationship between Nicola and her father, Karl. Nicola is still able to see her father’s love for her in his smile, despite the knowledge his smile masks an underlying heartache for his seal.

The love story of the Esk God and the Cloud God, one of unrequited but hopeful love for the former and a ‘lonesome love’ for the latter, demonstrates how relationships are often founded on shared experience. Despite their physical distance from each another, the Esk and Cloud Gods had for aeons enjoyed synergy: the Esk God worshiped the Cloud God for her life-giving rain, while the cloud sent her rain as an expression of her love. Similarly, immortal fire recognised that there was a connection between his caring for people and the purposes to which they applied him and, subsequently, made it his purpose to love Edith in the form of Jack. Shared reliance is a feature of other relationships in Flames. Karl and his seal depended upon one another in hunting Oneblood for years, a working relationship that was so personal to Karl that he referred to him as ‘his other half’, a reference that is not, at least on the page, attributed to his wife. Nicola and Charlotte’s shared experiences of danger, and Nicola’s ability to calm Charlotte’s flames, gradually bring them into relationship. The once-married private detective and Senior Detective Malik enter into a comfortable friendship after they divorce, their mutual understanding of one another continuing to deliver them shared benefits beyond their married years.

Friendships are shown to be forged by geography and familiarity, such as that between the ranger and Allen. Further, Allen’s reference to the wombats being family to him demonstrates the significance of attachments that can form between humans and animals or, such as with the ranger, with nature. As a child, the ranger’s mother would lock him outside until dinner time where, instead of developing human friends, his experiences with nature shaped a lifelong attachment to the wildness of the forest.

The Esk God’s musings about other land and river gods with whom he held respectful relationships, and which contrasts the hateful Thurston Hough whose legacy of disrespect ensured he was never considered a friend by anyone, demonstrates that foundational to all healthy relationships, whatever their form and nature, is mutual respect.

Family and Relationships Quotes

… the Oneblood Tuna. A man couldn’t hunt it alone, and neither could a seal, but together they could kill a beast twice as heavy as the two of them combined. (Karl) Chapter 2

Sometimes he chased a tuna for twenty or thirty metres, but always broke off and returned to Karl, a doggish smile hanging from his whiskers. (Karl’s seal) Chapter 2

His other half lay sleeping beside him. (Karl and his seal after their first Oneblood kill) Chapter 2

Without the Cloud God where would be no Esk rivers, and without the rivers there would be no Esk God. Chapter 4

The Cloud God would be waiting for him, high on the peaks and plateaus where she poured her sky water down the slopes and into his rivery veins. (the Esk God) Chapter 4

Graham’s instincts were rarely wrong, and I believed his anxieties even more than I believed his tips. (the detective about Malik) Chapter 6

I cannot bear the thought of being taken away from the farm, or from Melaleuca. If the wombats are my family, then this place is my home. (Allen) Chapter 7

… he was a terrible neighbour, an unpleasant person, and a poor citizen. (Mavis about Thurston) Chapter 8

After school his mother would welcome him by locking him outside, where their cottage bordered a great forest of eucalyptus and sassafras. (the ranger) Chapter 9

She split the face he showed the world, and drew his love towards her. (Nicola about her father’s smile) Chapter 10

Nothing could match the blaze of love in her father’s smile. (Nicola) Chapter 10

A friendship defined by shared danger, but a friendship nonetheless. (Nicola about Charlotte) Chapter 10

… he loved her more than he could ever show with words; … the coffin represented … this. (Levi about Charlotte) Chapter 11

It was people, always people; only people that he really cared for. (Fire) Chapter 12

He had helped them took, create, shape and heat themselves, and had come to think of them as not so much a family but as part of himself. (Fire) Chapter 12

It had something to do with attraction, he knew, and kindness and care and devotion. A true kind of love was in itself a version of what he knew best: it was a purpose. (Fire, as Jack) Chapter 12

All that his son had inherited from him was his love of purpose and his strength of resolve. (Jack, about Levi) Chapter 12

He never realised that this distance grew not because they were different, but because they were so alike – flames or not. (Jack, about Levi) Chapter 12

His feelings for her were of the purest, awe-blinded kind of devotion. (Jack, about Charlotte) Chapter 12

Even when Charlotte grew into a loud, hard-to-handle blur of a child, he could feel nothing but love. (Jack, about Charlotte) Chapter 12

Levi and I have never understood each other. (Charlotte) Chapter 13

But I know that between us there is love. … Love built with his stubborn resolve, with my hot temper, with all the care our mother poured into us. (Charlotte about Levi) Chapter 13

A special pelt: a river pelt. A pelt that had belonged to the other half of the cloud’s heart. The pelt of her waterlocked love … Chapter 14

Never again would he climb the dark mountain and stare up in hopeful worship. Never again would she feed his kingdom with her tears of lonesome love. (The Esk and Cloud Gods) Chapter 14

I have nothing to forgive. I have only trust to win back. (Levi about Charlotte) Chapter 15

Nature

Arnott’s unique style of nature writing, within a magic realism context, ensures that rich imagery of nature is a feature right throughout Flames, from the physical forms taken by the reincarnated McAllister women, ‘… an ornate crown of bluegum branches burst from her head…’, to the supernatural forms of the whale-sized Oneblood hunted by Karl and his seal. In this way, Arnott brings a sense of wonder to the reader about the wildness and potentiality of nature, much like that presented from the perspective of the ranger, leaving undistinguished what is true and what is fiction.

Nature is presented as alive and awe-inspiring and, compared to the built-up structure of cities, as being able to communicate calm and tranquillity. As Charlotte heads further south towards Melaleuca, her mind fills with pictures and feelings rather than words, illustrating nature’s unique style of conversing which displaces language and structure, and she feels intuitively that she is heading to where she needs to be. Likewise, the beach was to Charlotte, Levi and her mother a frequent source of enjoyment, while for Karl, it was being out in the open sea, past the breakwaters, that he enjoyed best, out where he and his seal experienced all the joy and victories of the sea. The same cannot be said for the detective, unfortunately, who was able to recognise nature’s beauty but unable to enjoy its intrinsic qualities of balance and renewal.

Nature is not always kind, as portrayed in the graphic slaughter of Karl’s seal by the orcas, in the supernatural cormorant killings of the wombats, in the river creatures’ gnawing of Thurston Hough, and in the destruction of the forest after the bush fire. Viewed within the paradigm of an ecosystem, some of these interactions are considered normal functions to the sustainability of the relevant system.

However, ecosystems can decline and degrade, as Arnott’s allusions to the effects of human activity on the environment indicate. Issues of water pollution and biodiversity loss from human expansion and industry, such as through agricultural and manufacturing practices, are raised in the Esk God’s musings; he bemoans the extinction of the Hunt God (Tasmanian Tiger) as he tastes the run-off lime and nitrogen of land practices. The Esk God’s surety that no one can kill a river hangs as a veiled threat considering the water management practices in places like the Murray Darling Basin which have been mobilised to avoid such an outcome. Fire’s musings about how he was used in smelting ‘…as they moulded him into infernos that could crack and melt the ores …’ makes inferences to fossil fuel burning, the association emissions of which are considered a main contributor in climate change. In light of this, the poetic story of the Cloud God’s response to the river god’s death, in which she attempted to drown the island, presents as a harbinger of things to come unless a balance may be struck between humans and their environment.

Nature Quotes

When she’d wandered back into her living room she immediately started shedding sheets of paperbark all over the carpet, while an ornate crown of bluegum branches burst from her head and the furred tail of a Bennett’s wallaby flopped out from beneath her dress. (Levi, about his great-aunt Margaret’s reincarnation) Chapter 1

… the Oneblood Tuna. A man couldn’t hunt it alone, and neither could a seal, but together they could kill a beast twice as heavy as the two of them combined. (Karl) Chapter 2

They took turns gripping its tail in their teeth and flinging their heads left to right, over and over again, using the hard lid of the ocean to break Karl’s seal into ragged chunks of brown-red meat. (the orcas) Chapter 2

Charlotte is wandering the main road of Franklin and thinking to herself, more with pictures and feelings than words, that she is getting closer to wherever she needs to be. … And Charlotte is calm too, just for being there. Chapter 3

Without the Cloud God where would be no Esk rivers, and without the rivers there would be no Esk God. Chapter 4

But the Esk God remained, and the Esk God thrived, for who could kill a river? Chapter 4

The Cloud God would be waiting for him, high on the peaks and plateaus where she poured her sky water down the slopes and into his rivery veins. (the Esk God) Chapter 4

I am besieged in my own home by the creatures of the river. (Mr Hough) Chapter 5

After school his mother would welcome him by locking him outside, where their cottage bordered a great forest of eucalyptus and sassafras. (the ranger) Chapter 9

… to let the wonder take his soul places it hadn’t been since he was a child in the forest, crouching in a branch-built shelter, thirsty for the taste of all the wild things in the world. (the ranger) Chapter 9

Charlotte’s eyes would not drift from the ground or sky. It was as if she was trying to blend in with the fields and snow. Chapter 10

It’s where he and Charlotte would come every day of summer, running through the heat to swim and shout, although she did most of the shouting and all of the swimming. (Levi about the beach) Chapter 11

It’s where his mother would sit quietly at the end of most days. (Levi, about the beach) Chapter 11

… with these pale, overclothed people he learned now to burn hotter than ever before, as they moulded him into infernos that could crack and melt the ores he hadn’t known hid inside him. (Fire) Chapter 12

A cloud’s sorrow: … whenever a storm hits the world with uncommon force. When mountains crack and forests flood. When rivers surge and oceans bloat. When there is no true shelter in the world. Chapter 14

Control, Colonisation and Manipulation

Arnott deals with the idea of control in many ways throughout the text. As a function of management, control is explored in terms of the dominions of various land and river gods and their custodianship of related elements, such as the Esk God’s custody and care of the river, the ranger’s responsibilities in forest management, and more personally, through Charlotte’s attempts to manage her fire from leaking. Fire’s story of enjoying the many purposes to which he has been put by people throughout history speaks to the technological advancements of humans, such as through cooking and heating.

Control may be exerted in a dysfunctional way, and this is primarily seen in Flames through Levi’s attempts to control Charlotte after their mother’s death by burying instead of cremating her, thereby interceding in her destiny to reincarnate. In this example, Levi appears to lack insight into his behaviour, his own reasoning ability having been taken control of by the river god’s pelt, similar to the manner in which Allen takes his direction from the cormorant leader at the end of his story. Levi is eventually able to see things from Charlotte’s perspective and changes his behaviour, realising it was his controlling manner that had made Charlotte run away. The detective’s overuse of gin and other substances highlights the controlling nature of addictive substances in numbing personal pain.

The text alludes to the colonisation of Australia, specifically Tasmania, through fire speaking of having witnessed Indigenous people being hunted in their own land and in his experiences of racism when he changed his form into that of an Indigenous man and attempted to socialise with white people. An example of large-scale control, the colonisation process involves colonisers imposing a new way of life on the indigenous people of a land, which in the case of Tasmania was especially impactful as it involved the near genocide of the Palawa people and the destruction of their languages. The Palawa kani language is being reconstructed from the surviving words of various Tasmanian Aboriginal languages.

Manipulation is the harmful influence of someone for personal advantage and is best exemplified in the text by Jack’s influencing of Edith’s affections for him by lighting a spark in her brain so she would fall in love with him. Having achieved his purpose, Jack did not manipulate Edith again but did continue his behaviour of lighting sparks in the minds of others whenever they became too curious about his background. Edith’s discovery of having been manipulated by Jack inevitably ended their marriage, the moral violation of her trust being irreparable. Manipulative behaviour may be rationalised as achieving some short-term goal, such as when Charlotte and the detective each separately engaged in flirtatious behaviour with the two miners at the pub in order to get the information they wanted, however, it should be remembered that manipulation is a psychologically unhealthy behaviour that has the ability to lead to further problematic outcomes.

Control, Colonisation and Manipulation Quotes

I started looking for a coffin, and I swore to bury her whole and still and cold. (Levi about Charlotte) Chapter 1

This look of control. This look of I need to do something; she needs my help, when really (as far as Charlotte is concerned) he is the one who needs help, because what was she doing but grieving? (about Levi) Chapter 3

He had learned the colour and the shape of their callousness, but he could not stop them, for his power was limited to the rivers, while they swamped over everything. (the Esk God) Chapter 4

He was wise enough to know that his fury would not help the river or stop the apes, so he continued on, soothing his rage in a simple, humbly way – by nipping screws out of the hull of an idle jetski. (the Esk God) Chapter 4

I would visit the leader of the cormorants, and then I would now how next to proceed. … He would show me the path. (Allen) Chapter 7

‘You girls got any gin?’ (the detective) Chapter 10

Levi is not well. Levi is not realising: he could have just spoken to her. In a mind like his, grand acts will always trump honest words. (about Charlotte) Chapter 11

So he began following his greatest purpose yet: to make her love him. (Jack about Edith) Chapter 12

The flames of rage and loneliness that burn through her smirk; flames that can’t be put out. She is just like me. (Charlotte, about the detective) Chapter 13

If I am to leave Nicola, I need to control them without her touch. (Charlotte) Chapter 13

He who owned the river now burned in the flames. Chapter 14