The White Earth

Themes

The Past

Andrew McGahan’s novel The White Earth shows a world where the past simply refuses to stay in the past. Like the bones being dragged from the water hole on Kuran Station, all events of the past will one day resurface. The past lives alongside the present and the events of the past have shaped the present but any attempt to cover up past misdeeds fails. Daniel McIvor leads a dubious life and spends some time as a police officer committing horrendous crimes against the Indigenous population. His dark secret follows him, causing the community to turn against him. It also moves to the next generation as evidence that will indirectly link to his son’s death as he tries to dispose of the bones from people murdered by Daniel. It shows that the past, which John declares has been removed as he thinks no more Indigenous people live in the area, can reappear. Ladies that are living nearby have a connection with the land and are located by Ruth.

Ignoring the past is symbolised in William’s ear ache. As it goes untended, it rots from the inside and festers. John’s lack of insight into the dreams of his father means he pursues the Kuran Station at all costs. Like his father, he ends up alone having sacrificed family for the possession; his unattended, inherited greed separates him from his daughter and wife. John’s lack of attention to the Indigenous past leaves him feeling superior and not understanding the similarities that he has with the community fighting for its land.

McGahan also explores the notion of inheritance and legacy, a gift from the past. The narrative focusses on the passing of Kuran Station from John McIvor to his nephew, William. At any turn there is competition for the inheritances available. When Dudley dies several people fight for his land in the will. Likewise, after John passes intestate, Ruth knows that the land will be fought for by William, Mrs Griffith and maybe the ladies at Cherbourg.

However, the notion of inheritance in The White Earth also extends beyond land and property. The novel examines how ethical and behavioural misdeeds of the past impact on contemporary and future generations. In this way, The White Earth shows how the social and cultural issues it depicts are just as relevant now as they were generations ago. The greedy desire for Kuran Station is passed from Daniel to John to William. The attitudes toward the first nation people of Australia are also passed through the three generations. John comes to pass on his delirium to William. The inheritance is passed on from father to son to nephew, referenced when William finds Daniel McIvor’s dusty police cap in an old suitcase, and goes around wearing it—the younger generation inheriting the desire and political sensibility of the older generation. For William, this inherited disturbance, and the transfer of guilt, is more than he can reconcile without the interference from Ruth who balances his perspective.

The Past Quotes

A shrug. ‘Just goes to show, doesn’t it? There’s better things to leave behind than headstones.’ (John McIvor) Chapter 10

‘The mountains don’t matter to us,’ his uncle said. ‘They’re the old Kuran Station, and we’ll never get that back. Now there’s only twenty-odd square miles left, and that’s what concerns you and me.’ (John McIvor to William) Chapter 10

This is where I belong. It’s where I was raised. I was taught all about it by my father, and he spent most of his life here too. But you now …’ He paused to regard William again. ‘You don’t know anything because your father didn’t know anything in his turn. (John to William) Chapter 13

Knowledge, William decided, that was the issue. Knowledge was the essence of ownership. The black men, it seemed, had held the knowledge when they had owned the land. His uncle held it now. And when William had the knowledge, when he knew everything about the station there was to know, he too would be ready to be own it in his turn. Chapter 22

He passed his hand before William’s face, and William felt a dizziness as his eyes followed the long bony fingers waving back and forth. ‘But we’re blood, you and me. We must be. We share the same ghosts.’ (John McIvor) Chapter 29

This inheritance business is for his sake, not yours. So that his precious station survives after he’s gone. (Ruth to William) Chapter 34

‘We dispersed this tribe, we dispersed that tribe. It could mean hundreds of dead, it could mean thousands. But the Native Police operated all up and down Queensland, and they went on “dispersing” for over thirty years. It got so awful that it disturbed white people, even back then.’ Chapter 41

Ruth’s voice was flat. ‘My grandfather was one of them. He slaughtered blacks for a living, and wore his hat while he was doing it.’ Chapter 41

The White Earth / Land

The novel’s title has many qualities, denoting the White family who developed Kuran Station, to white colonisation of the plains and the white bones of the black people which are littered there. But it also refers to the view, expressed through John, that settlers and their descendants who have worked and lived on the land for generations can establish a deep and spiritual connection with it.

John McIvor’s separation from Kuran when he was young was seen as an amputation by him; a ‘limb had been lopped off’ and the blood draining away, a very real part of him was removed. John has taken the sense of entitlement bestowed on him by his father as a birthright. His self-identification with the Kuran Station evokes a feeling of responsibility for the deserted station, which seems to be ‘crying out to him for help’. This feeling is fixed in his struggle against the perceived injustice of the world, that deprives him of what ‘should have been his’. This is ironic considering John McIvor’s later campaigning against native title legislation. He somehow forgets the removal of the land from those Indigenous people that felt a connection or entitlement to it through custodial possession.

The land itself is described by McGahan as a wonderful and intricate world that has physical and spiritual values. He describes the bushland in detail and colour as well as acknowledging the ecological characteristics of the area. Through John he describes how the river system, that starts in Darling Downs, travels throughout the country, metaphorically explaining that the attitudes of the area can also travel in the same way. The land is a world of secrets and struggles. People get lost as the ‘very curve of the earth could hide you’. The waterhole hides atrocities and the hills have secrets of past Indigenous generations. Only when William explores the land on walkabout, reminiscent of small children following tribal traditions of manhood ceremonies and dream quests, can he see its secrets.

Above all the land is connected to the original inhabitants. There are sacred sites and markings that cannot be erased. Out of the dark past the land and its custodians are being reunited. A park ranger and a university student are investigating the aboriginal traditions on the land and in the hills. A group of ladies at Cherbourg are contacted by Ruth and declare their connection to the area. The bones of murdered men are brought back to light. Above all the legislation of Mabo land rights is before the courts. This case offers the potential for Indigenous people to make claims on land viewed as always theirs.

Land quotes

As a boy, riding the plains with his father, he had seen all that sweeping expanse of grass and though almost exclusively in terms of sheep and weights of wool. He had come to mountains in the same frame of mind – he was a timber-cutter, and the hoops were a source of trees, nothing else. But the more time John spent in the hills, the more he seemed to perceive the land around him as something powerful in its own right – to hear a voice in it, meant specifically for human ears. Chapter 12

It was a world of secrets, too. On the plains, everything could be seen and only the very curve of the earth could hide you. In the mountains, the land turned in on itself, concealing and yet revealing something new with every step. New vistas new perspectives. Chapter 12

It was as if the land was speaking to him directly; pulsing up through the stone at his feet. He belonged here. Not in the mountains or on the plains or in the towns, but here, on this one piece of country. It was the focus around which he had always circled. And look how it had suffered in his absence. As he suffered himself, incomplete, and doomed to be so, unless he returned. And in that moment, he knew. It was no pleasant fantasy or hope, it was utter conviction, an acceptance of truth – no matter how long he took, he would get the station back. Chapter 18

There are folk out there who believe that the Aborigines are the only ones who understand the land, that only the blacks have some magical connection that whites can never have, that we’re just stumbling around here without any idea…But that’s not true… this land talks to me. It doesn’t care what colour I am.’ Chapter 22

There‘s no turning back the clock. That‘s why I‘m angry about this legislation. Not because of the Aborigines. But because the legislation is stupid. It ignores reality. It tries to make criminals out of honest people who have worked hard for their land, it tries to say that we stole this country, when in fact we earned it. The new laws will tie us up in a sentimental mishmash of impossible rules that pretend history never happened, that somehow we‘re back where we were two hundred years ago. We‘re not, and they are wrong.’ Chapter 26

Now, we’re going to be hearing a lot about Aboriginal history and sacred sites in the coming years, and it might seem strange that we, of all people, should gather at one of their special places. But there’s a message in this. The Aborigines are gone. And that’s the point. This is my property now.’ (John McIvor) Chapter 26

‘This country will speak to you too, if you listen. The blacks say it flows into you through your feet, and they’re right. But it’s not an Aboriginal thing. It’s not a white thing either. It’s a human thing. Not everyone has it. But I do. And you have it too.’ Chapter 36

Family

The ideal of a steady stable family is rarely represented in The White Earth. It is more poignant to examine what causes the breakdowns in the family unit to understand McGahan’s commentary on family. The McIvors are divided as the greed and ambition hit a setback and Daniel starts his downward spiral. The past history of the family haunts them and eventually comes to light. The sins of the father are passed to the son. Daniel’s prejudice is present and only lightly veiled in John’s rhetoric.

William’s family is twice afflicted both by the death of his father and by the ineptitude of his mother to cope and support her son. She is in a position of desperation and typical of many of the women in the text. As such, she is driven to secure a future for herself and for her son. This sudden ambition, placed on William’s shoulders, is a corrupting force in an already fragile family unit.

However, William’s mother’s situation is not unique when looking at the plight of women in the family unit. Elizabeth White was seen as a pawn by Edward White with Daniel and John McIvor. She was powerless under Edward and only free when he had died to take power over her own life. Ruth likewise was powerless in the family home. After being raped she was sent away, a decision she couldn’t fathom as she had done nothing wrong but was simply the victim of John’s greed, sacrificing her for a chance at Dudley’s property.

Family Quotes

Her arm lifted and she slapped him, her hand catching his right ear in a painful, piercing smack. (William’s mother smacking him) Epilogue

John’s only hope lay in his father. Kuran Station might be lost to them forever, but Daniel had savings, so why shouldn’t they buy some land of their own somewhere else? Chapter 9

His father had failed completely, and his last years had only displayed the shame of it in public. Better that he was dead. As for John’s mother and sister, when he said goodbye after the funeral, he had no expectation of ever seeing them again. Chapter 12

Prejudice

The racial prejudice in McGahan’s novel is mainly covert and seen as the product of generations. However there are instances of specific racial atrocities such as Daniel McIvor and the slaughter of Indigenous men. The obvious racial rhetoric of some of the Independence League members and the Ku Klux Klan style rally are in some ways exceptions to the rule in the novel. The covert nature of land dispossession and the appropriation of some form of spiritual ownership is more prominent.

In a political manner, there are references and allusions to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party which emerged on the Australian political scene in 1997 and contested the federal elections the following year. Hanson’s constituency in Queensland, the north-eastern state, was largely rural and made up mostly of farmers and pastoralists. In The White Earth the party is masterminded by McIvor, whose ‘Charter’ ends with the demand for ‘One Flag,’ ‘One People,’ and of course, ‘One Nation’.

Prejudice quotes

Black men, looking on from the shadows, their expressions impossible to read. Hostile? Fearful? (Picture in John McIvor’s office) Chapter 5

One other thing – the skull was smashed in. Kirchmeyer hadn’t just wandered off and died, he’d been killed. It was the blacks, of course. They weren’t stupid, they knew the white man was bad news. (John tells William some local history) Chapter 20

We believe that the rights of the individual cannot be interfered with. We believe in the inherent value of Australian culture and traditions. We believe in one flag. In one people. One nation. Chapter 16

‘… it’s open house, it’s Asians and Arabs and God knows who else, and it’s a proven fact, those people bring all their old problems with them … ‘ (Unknown speaker at rally) Chapter 26