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Rooke has no regret that his choice he had made forty-six years ago was right.

“he should be sorry for it now, that choice he had made forty-six years ago” but once he “[tries] the idea out in his mind…he did not seem to be feeling regret”.

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1. When describing their first encounter, Grenville goes into detailed describing her features, including her “long graceful neck” and “expressive, mobile face”. This suggests to readers that she will be a significant character.

2. Compare her to Rooke’s sister, Anne, at her age, being --

“old enough to want to look into another’s eyes, one human to another, and still young enough to be fearless”.

This comparison suggests that they will have a strong relationship, as Anne is until now, --

“only human in the world who trusted him to be able to laugh at himself”.

3.Tagaran patience with Rooke when teaching him words in her language and Rooke’s fascination by this process suggests that the pair will learn a lot from each other.

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Gardiner also recognizes that Rooke is avoiding his active duties and empathises with this desire when he says,

“we have got to get you that comet. Otherwise the governor will have you close up shop there.”

Furthermore, they also share an interest in astronomy.

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Rooke feels uncomfortable, distress to Wyatt's order

“As he [Rooke] pulled his finger back against the trigger and braced himself for the noise, he had a moment's nausea. …he would be happy if today…was the last day he ever fired it.” p.60

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uncomfortable against his conscience to "kidnapped natives"

“it was by far the most unpleasant service I was ever ordered to execute” p.112

and shout

“I wish to God I had not done it! He should not have given the order, but I wish to God I had not obeyed” p.113

condemn governer as 'Devil'

"Yes, we are all servants of the governor here and the Devil take any man who says different!" p.113

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Rooke feels sorry to (betray) aboriginal people from participate the expedition.

“And Rooke had been part of it. He had not cried out with horror or rushed forward to put an end to it. He had looked away when Warungin called to him” p.198

“He had made that choice, because he was a lieutenant in Her Majesty’s Marine Force … If he was a soldier, he was as much a part of the cruelty as the man who had wielded the whip” p.199

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Tagaran can't understand why Rooke wearing a red coat which symbolize as his duty and obligation of marine.

“Large, male, a stranger, and clad in incomprehensible coverings…” p.159

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Rooke feels sympathetic towards the prisoner. He rationalises his crime by explaining that

“to take food when it available is … a correct response to hunger”.

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Rooke does not trust his story about being stoned by the Aboriginal people because

“looked a little shifty” and that he was “a man with a sharp assessment of where his own interests lay.”

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Grenville describes the “flesh that clogged [the tails of the whip]” in visceral detail to encourage the reader to side with Rooke and Warungin rather than with the idea of British justice.
By encouraging the audience to have an emotional reaction, Grenville aims to position them to feel that the violence committed against the natives was cruel, unnecessary and unjustifiable.

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Implying Rooke regret that he should distance the damage done by the Red Coats.

“if you were part of such an act, you were part of its wrong … if you were part of that machine, you were part of its evil” p.280

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he has given his life for them

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Grenville introduces Rooke as a

special numbers, ...they are solitaries.

who has an affinity with numbers as a strong sense of

“being out of step with the world.” p.5

Rooke is willing to put up with the “tedious” Timpson if it means that he can--

“take his place in the furthest and most dimly lit corner of the room.”p.83

Rooke responds very positively and says that --

“there is nowhere in the world that I would rather be.”

He is content because of the unfamiliarity of the place, as well as the opportunities that the expedition provided to exert his influence upon his colleagues.

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Ab first encounter Rooke (British crockery and culture)

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Ab first encounter Rooke (British crockery and culture)

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When he sees the natives first encounter crockery and cutlery, he realizes that --

“it would never again be the first time. Rooke was aware of witnessing something unrepeatable and irreversible. He was watching one universe in the act of encountering another”.

Rooke is in awe, considering the momentous, rare occasion happening before him.

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They are similar in their understanding of the Aboriginal people as humans and their desire not to commit wrongs against fellow human beings. This is evident in the “bond of trust” that was built between the men as a result of Gardiner’s honesty about his role in the capture of the natives.

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Warungin received Rooke's message before visit the troop

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Warungin received Rooke's message before visit the troop

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Page 263: "The only problem was that the natives had not waited to be outflanked”; “Three other canoes, full of natives, had already reached the far bank.”

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Tagaran puts Rooke at ease because of her patience with him. She is simultaneously learning his language, and the two share a common enthusiasm for getting to know each other’s language and culture, which leads to them developing a close friendship. Their interactions go

“far beyond vocabulary or grammatical forms”

and instead get to --

“the heart of talking” and “the way in which two people had found common ground and begun to discover the true names of things.”

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Duty and ambition of military service have come to feel ‘bloodless and irrelevant’ beside his new-found passion for learning language and friendship from Tagaran.

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Gardiner takes Rooke fishing to ease his anxiety about the arrival of the comet. Gardiner says that he has never seen Rooke so --

“careworm”

-- and he thinks that fishing will help to relax him.

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Rooke understand there was no tolerance for disobedence in this soldier organisation (Britain Gov.):

“to bend to the King’s will required the suspension of a human response. A man was obliged to become part of the mighty military machine.” p.29

"No one ...would ever forget what happend to those who did not serve and obey" p.29

because is to violent.

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Dr Vickery makes Rooke feel at ease

“for the first time in his life, that he was in the right place.”

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Meeting the natives and learning their language, culture and worldview have had much more of an impact on Rooke’s life and is more significant than the events described in Parts 1 and 2. He feels as if --

“everything in his life had been leading here”.

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Rooke vs Silk - to stangeness (learn / write story)

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Rooke vs Silk - to stangeness (learn / write story)

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Silk’s approach to the ‘strangeness’ of the natives leads him to want to make the unfamiliar more familiar by writing about it turning it into a story.
In constrast, when Rooke meets the natives, he wants to learn as much as he can about this strangeness.

For Rooke, “difference [holds] no fear” and “strangeness [is] commonplace when you [inhabit] it”.

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Silk is extremely personable and charismatic –

“he was cordial, amusing and easy, always in the right place with just the right words.”

Rooke seeks to reinvent himself as sees Rooke as a –

“model of how it was done.”

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“on the voyage he had established his distinction from the other marines. He must continue as he had begun.” p.63

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Rooke would not apologise to failure of punitive expedition.

“when they told him that he might continue in the service, on the conditions that he apologise .. He refused” p.291

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"is was easy to raise his right hand and swear that he would serve and obey. it was nothing but words" p.27

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He can be excused from his military duties. He also wanted to keep part of himself private from the rest of his officers. He says, –

“astronomy would make a convenient screen for a self that he did not choose to share with any of the other soles marooned with him.”

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He has a strong sense of obligation and duty to follow the orders of those people above him. If he gave the real reason that he did not want to participate, he would be seen as weak or a traitor.

“Being reminded that he was a soldier, a man who had sworn to serve and obey, was like forcing open a rusted hinge” p.244

Silk: I have given your name to the governor Rooke feel unfomfortable

“this is not a request, it is an order” p.246

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He is eager to occupy roles that exempt him from his duty as a lieutenant–

“on the voyage he had established his distinction from the other marines. He must continue as he had begun.” p.63

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“his order”

is not teaching natives to use gun.

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This impact on his sense of duty and obligation to serve his nation–

“a man was obliged to become part of the mighty military machine.”

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Rooke and Silk are naïve in the sense that they are motivated to set out on the expedition for selfish reasons/personal gain. Their attitude is symptomatic of the rest of the English settlers and as a collective, this inevitably contributes to the racial conflict.

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“rank was no longer the extent of his ambition” p.39

Silk had been–

“waiting for his vocation to become possible.”

He is earge to write his experience in NSW.

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Rooke has a --

“longing to protect, and an imperative to stand aside”

-- both Tagaran and Anne. He feels warmth and fondness for them both and feels comfortable around them.

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Find new passion- learn language from Tagaran

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Find new passion- learn language from Tagaran

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“Destiny was a grand word, but perhaps not too grand for what lay ahead”p.156

Duty and ambition have come to fell 'bloodless and irrelevant' and things is 'not too grand for' beside his new-found pasiion for learning language from Tagaran.

"Rank: in a remote way he knew it mattered, but now it seemed bloodless and irrelevant” p.168

Illustrating his priorties lie, prefiguring his later decision regarding the punitive expedition and his future with the military services.

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“he had no memories other than being an outsider” p.3

“ Whether it was because he was stupid or clever, it added up to the same thing: the misery of being out of step with the world” p.5

he had no evidence, but doggedly believed that there would one day be a place, somewhere in the world, for the person he was” p.15

“the solitude without matched the solitude within” p.69

-"emptiness matched his own" p.10

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are young men who display such ambitions, seeking the attention and appreciation of their seniors, always with

“eyes on next prize”  p.22

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"No ... understanding was possible without language to convey it … "p.108

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Rooke realizes that --

“...language is more than a list of words...Language [is] a machine".  p.152

Rooke commits himself to study the local language because he realises that “he is that man” because he has experience learning languages and analysing the world scientifically. He fantasises about impressing the governor with his studies and hopes they will lead to him understanding “the cosmos [the Cadigal society] inhabits”

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language is more than just a machine, it is part of the connection between two people.

“You did not learn a language without entering into a relationship with the people who spoke it with you” p.233

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Tagaran was teaching him a word, and by it she was showing him a words.’ p.255

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Willstead openly expresses his distaste for the Aboriginal people:

"By God they are savage…dirty too, look at the filth on them." (p. 139)

Willstead accompanies Silk and Rooke on the punitive expedition. He laughs at the prospect of killing native people with the hatchet:

“he was vastly entertained by some idea” (p.272)

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•They had forged a bond deeper than mere good fellowship

•Something in him was blighted by what he had seen, and by defeat

Silk's gift was to cut and embellish until a pebble was transformed into a gem.

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"Rooke, my friend, will you be good enough to help me?... There will be things you hear of, which I will miss. I look to you as a friend."

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"A punitive expedition is to be mounted, which I have the honour of leading"

"You could think of it as a piece of theatre , Rooke, if you wished."

“do him no harm, men” Silk shouted…. He is coming to us in trust, it is no part of our intention to betray trust, only to punish” p.266

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"By chance his hammock in the bowels of Resolution hung next to that of a man who could not have been more different from himself”

"By Jove, Rooke, I can see that we will get on famously"

"He was cordial, amusing and easy, always in the right place with just the right words."

"…a storyteller who could turn the most commonplace event into something entertaining. "

"With Silk beside him as a model of how it was done, Rooke worked at inventing an acceptable version of himself…"

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"for Silk, as for himself, the place promised other riches. NSW was part of man's destiny."

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the flogger must

"stop and comb his fingers through the tails of the whip after each lash to clear the flesh that clogged them"

enocurage reader side with Rooke

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"boundary was being crossed and erased. Like ink in water, one language was melting into another" p.178

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“His collar was choking him, his cap squeezing his head, his jacket seemed made of iron” p.196

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"in company with Tagaran he glimpsed how everything found its place with everything else”

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"taken by the hand and helped step by step in the dark"

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to remain the expedition, he has to

"turn his back on the man he had become"

, but refuse any further part would

"step back into the void"

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"naked eye could see things a tele-scope could not"

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This attack was foreshadowed earlier in the novel – the first time he was injured while hunting . He explained to the governor that

“they was coming for me, they had the spears and the cudgels, I felt my life to be in danger, sir…I fired among the thick of them.”

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"By god they are savage" 139