Blueback

Blueback

Australia is along the coast and the deserts locate in the middle. Its climate is dry, so people in Australia love the sea. The most of cities were built along the coast. Australians express the particular emotion to the sea. The novel Blueback by Tim Winton introduces the Australian behaviours and values. From the story we learn about the secret of the sea and the beauty landscape of Australia. The story also tells the environment problem and the phenomena of overfishing. The main characters are Abel and his mother, Dora and they stand for the Australian. They experience the conflict with fishermen, land developers and environmental pollution.

The first environmental issue raised in Blueback is overfishing. In the story, some people killed fish for fun and they just wanted to take photos with huge dead fish. Abel’s friend, Macka who was greedy and he always caught abalones by oneself and did not care his life and died in the end. Abel’s father and his family used to hunt for the whales, but now there were no hunts. These years, the storm often came and the weather got worse and worse. One year, the salmon even disappeared. There were some dolphins that died in the cliffs. Another year, Dora saw thousands and thousands of whale bones along the bay.

In addition land clearing is another major concern. There were some businessmen and councilors who came to Bay and wanted to get the land. They brought lots of presents, such as new outboard motors, a wind generator and offered good money. When they were not successful to get the land, they did the annoying things, such as the rougher road, the later letters and bushfires. Abel found more and more people came spearing and the great underwater desert that dynamite fishing and pollution had created. The oil tankers leaked the oil everywhere and the ship caught fire.

Finally the novel does give hope by showing how we can live in deep harmony with our environment. Abel and Blueback had a deep friendship...