Black Diggers Flashcards
Ern, Norm and Bob
Repeatedly attempts to enlist in war, although they are shot down every time. Once they do get enlisted, their uniforms don’t fit, which just shows how alienated and different they are from society.
- “You can’t come in here. Well you’re… you’re not a citizen”
- “Reason: Of strongly Aboriginal Appearance”
- Lacking “white parentage”
Stage direction: ‘They laugh and put on uniforms, hats, boots, most of which don’t fit.’
Bertie 1916, the lock of hair
Bertie is scared because for the first time he’s seen an Aboriginal who was lost by war, and he hates the idea of him being buried here instead of back at home. These thoughts bring him back to reality and showcase how his innocence has fled.
- “His you know, his soul will be stuck here”
- “Seen hundreds of bodies. This is the first one who looks like me”
Stage direction: ‘he cuts a lock of the dead kid’s hair, and says the our father prayer’
Stage direction: ‘Big explosions. Dirt showers on them. Loud bombs and gunfire’
(a part of him will be back on Australian soil)
“I shouldn’t be here!
I’m fifteen. I shouldn’t be here, I shouldn’t be here” - Bertie
Repetition exposes how scared Bertie is
Stage Direction: ‘Tommy still in his
living grave.’
‘He cries, like a little boy. He’s covered in mud. They scrape it off’
- They make a comment on his skin and how they can’t scrape that feature off them.
Bertie convincing mother to let him enlist in war:
“I’m going to be a fighter too. For us, but not just us, for Australia”
“But i’ll stay standing”
His grandpa - “All these blokes, you’re going off to lick their boots. Same blokes, same blokes that have kicked us down for years”
Nigel’s parents getting murdered, taxidermist saving him as he’s a young boy and doesn’t deserve to die, although that’s not the same scenario for his parents
“Back from the dead, if only you knew it’
- Referring to the baby as an ‘it’: “What are you going to do with it” determines them as not worthy to be titled with an actual identity
He killed the parent without a second thought. Not even considering that she had a child and a family that needed her.
“I’m not getting involved in this” - Stockman
“You were happy to fill it’s mothers back with pellets” - Settler
- Also shows how brutal war can be physically, and how there was a war before WW1 even began
“Darky”
“In the light of recent reinforcements we may have to reconsider his name”
Not much is known about Indigenous Australians as they have always been alienated
“I thought you blokes could see in the dark”
“Cause you fellers all have a fifth sense or something”
“Maybe he thought I had better camouflage in the dark”
Quotes on connection throughout the growth of war:
Voice in the dark to Ern
“If we both get home, you’ll be walking into the front bar, mate. Don’t worry about that.”
“Fellers we’ve got a bloke here who needs to be shown whats what!”
Stage direction: ‘The soldiers pile on the Aggressive Private and beat him up. He comes out of it bloodied and bruised’
Harry - “The worlds turned fucking upside down”
Nigel: “I don’t want to join in…
I don’t belong”
- At the end of the war
Tommy has died, this is after the war:
Stage direction: ‘ A minister, alone by the hole in the ground. Rain.’
‘He looks around. Throws a clod of earth on the coffin, hurries away’
- Little respect, not remembered
Rain is a symbol of sadness and is like the world is crying for a boy who wasn’t given a proper burial
“And the worst of it is that Ollie is alive, he’s in hospital…
and he hasn’t got a face, but he’s still alive Aunty May. But he hasn’t got a face, Aunty May, he hasn’t got a face”
- How shaken Archie feels after the war has ended
Archie going into a pub on Anzac day and is refused access, “Lest we forget is for all of us eh?”
“We don’t see the skin, we see the service”
