Fly Away Peter

"It is the repetitions and contrasts in the events, characters, settings, or use of language in a text which often consolidate our understanding of it." In what ways did repetitions and contrasts in one of the texts guide your understanding?

‘What’s life all about?’ is the question that David Malouf puts to his readers in the novella Fly Away Peter. He has created repetitions and contrasts in events, characters and settings that help a reader to understand the underlying messages of the text and be guided to the conclusion that "A life wasn’t for anything. It simply was." (p.132).

Fly Away Peter begins with the image of a bi-plane flying over the swamplands in Queensland. The difference between Jim’s view of this "awkward, noisy" (p.3) bi-plane and the birds that inhabit the swamp is the first major contrast in the novella and is representative of the differences between man and animals, or natural and unnatural. Malouf describes the birds in such a way that it seems they are the lucky ones. They do not question the meaning of life or why they exist as humans do; "What am I doing here?" (p. 130), but simply go about their daily lives, accepting the changes that occur. Birds appear in the sanctuary of the swampland

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David Malouf suggests that life moves in cycles and that everything changes. They are born and return to the naturalness of the earth when they die.

The contrast between the tranquillity of the swamplands and the chaos of war is further emphasised by David Malouf with his strong division of the book into two sections of eight chapters with a denouement at the end. David Malouf’s use of repetition and contrast helps to enhance these themes and ideas, and definitely gives the reader an understanding of the underlying message in his book "A life wasn’t for anything. After he has been in Europe for a while, he realises that until the war he had been living the same life day by day with no change. The birds’ appearances are usually at the times when Jim Saddler’s character is present. "

All of the themes and images in Fly Away Peter are significant in helping the reader to understand the many different ideas that are conveyed. This is probably also one of the reasons that so many people joined up. "It was the smell… of rat-droppings, and piss, and the unwashed bodies of the men they were relieving. "Jim saw that he had been living, till he came here, in a state of dangerous innocence…He had been blind.

Approximate Word count = 1056
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

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