Walkabout Essay -- Australia Aborigines Literature Essays

WalkaboutThis story is about two children who are stranded in the Australianoutback after a plane crash. By chance they go through an Aborigine boy whois on his walkabout. From these two different groups of people meetingeach opposite, it shows the reader how much people can learn from othersand how different we only are.Marys first inclination is to mother Peter. She feels responsible forhim and he depends on her. But she feels inadequate in this newenvironment. Al courses she had protected Peter, had smooth things outand made them easy for him molly-coddled him like an anxious hen,her father had once said. But how could she protect him now? Then thebush boy comes across their highway and things become tense between thechildren and aborigine.The very first thing Mary notices about the Aborigine is that he isvery black and naked. She finds this very disturbing, The thing thatshe couldnt accept, the thing that seemed to her shockingly andindecently wrong, was the fact that the boy was naked. As the twocultures confront each other they just stare at each other indisbelief and wonder, Between them the distance was less than thespread of an outstretched arm, but more than a hundred thousandyears.They had climbed a long way up the ladder of progress they hadclimbed so far, in fact, that they had forgotten how their climb hadstarted They had had everything provided for them and had never hadto fend for themselves. It was very different with the Aboriginal wayof life. He knew what honesty was. Their lives were unbelievablysimple compared to the aborigine. They had no homes, no crops, noclothes, no possessions. The few things they had they shared food andwives children and l... ...least offended by it. Peter and Mary mix verynaturally with these Aborigine strangers. The women swim together andshare food and Peter as been drawn to a particular man within thetribe. The man looks at the drawings they had done earlier of a houseand realises that they need to find civilisation. He draws them a map,which ends in a house so they know where to go. Before they cave inPeter takes in the beauty of their surroundings he knew in thatmoment that every detail of what hed seen in the last two weeks hedremember for he rest of his life. He then leads the way via the mapto civilisation and Mary follows. It makes you hope that they willtake back with them into their school culture all they havelearned from the Aboriginal people and their strange ways of life withtheir fantasy lands, spiritual gods and there true sense of belonging.