In David Maloufs Fly Away Peter (1982) Jims life as an ordinary working class Australian youth is quickly suspended for the emerging disturbance that is WWI

by benjijwuyahoocomau (student)

International Baccalaureate World Literature

SACE Stage 2 English Studies

Study of a Single Text – Fly Away Peter

Q: Explain how techniques used by the author were effective in shaping your understanding of the central ideas in one of the core texts.

In David Malouf’s Fly Away Peter (1982) Jim’s life as an ordinary working class Australian youth is quickly suspended for the emerging disturbance that is WWI. The audience’s understanding of the central ideas of the effects of war on men, binary opposites in life, and the continuity of life are effectively developed through the use of contrast between settings, minor characters, and recurring motifs.

Through the use of contrast between settings Malouf explores the idea that life is full of binary opposites. The reader is initially introduced to Jim’s life on the Queensland coast, in a peaceful setting with its “intensely blue mountains” and swamps bordered with tea-trees “staining the shallows there tobacco brown” (Malouf, Fly Away Peter, p.1), outlining the natural beauty of the land’s swamps and marshes. In the sanctuary of Jim’s work he gives tours in a “flat-bottomed boat”, drifting over “brackish water” with its depths the “colour of brewed tea” and its surface a “burnished gold” (p.29). The very water and air that is the sustenance of life is juxtaposed by the horrific environment on the Western Front, where water and air are the invisible enemies which bring death to the soldiers in the trenches. In the terrible reality of trench warfare the soldiers march on surrounded by the smell of “damp earthwalls and rotting planks” accompanied by “decaying corpses” with an odd hand or foot “all ragged and black” (p.78). The “water was the real enemy”, causing trench foot and horrible conditions along with the toxic air on the battlefield. In the story’s resolution the reader is brought back to ‘reality’ back in Queensland, back to the beach where “high walls of water” hurl themselves forward “under a shower of spindrift” with a white rush that ran hissing” (p.129); the reader is returned to serenity of life in Australia, away from the war zone. Malouf’s use of contrast in settings effectively distinguishes between the calm peacefulness in Australia and the rumbling chaos of the War in Europe that are binary opposites.

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The dreadfulness in the trenches in the effects of war on men of Fly Away Peter is uniquely conveyed through Malouf’s use of minor characters. The reader and Jim are introduced to Wizzer Green as an uncultured man who had looked to pick a fight with Jim for no particular reason. The preconception that Wizzer is a stereotypical ‘tough guy’ is initially seeded into the reader’s mind, but this idea is soon destroyed. Later on, in the battlefields, Jim finds refuge in the safety of a shell crater and is surprised to be pulled back in as he is leaving by an “iron grip”. Wizzer is no longer the strong man he was known to be, cowering in fear with “clenched teeth” as his whole body is shaken by “invisible hands” (p.92). The effect that war has on Wizzer is frightening, conveying the idea of the devastating effects that war can have on men. Jim on the other hand demonstrates that war is capable of producing his capacity to be good. Despite his previous relationship with Wizzer, he makes a determined effort to save him but is ultimately unsuccessful. Malouf’s use of minor characterisation demonstrates the comradery between men that is developed from war and also its traumatic effects on their mental fortitude.

Throughout the text the migratory birds are repeatedly referred to, the use of the motif of the birds and the mental map is used to represent the continuity of life. The haven of bird life in Ashley’s sanctuary first introduces the readers to the importance and focus on the birds as a recurring motif, being observed closely by Jim, Ashley and Imogen in their shared passion. Jim soon moves on from this quiet stage of his life – into the war zone – and witnesses these migratory birds “arriving in spring and departing at the commencement of autumn”(p.61) throughout his short and final chapter of his life in Europe. “Even here, in the thick of the fighting” (p.106), there were birds persisting through life despite the destruction war had caused to their habitat. He is comforted by seeing these “familiar creatures” that all travel across the globe in the “natural course of their lives”. The birds create a private reassurance for Jim to create “a map in his head” that connects to his past, to find his way “back at times to a natural cycle of things that the birds still followed undisturbed” (p.61). The motif of the map represents Jim’s uniqueness in that he believes birds carry a map for navigation around the world. A mental map is seen “clearly in his head”, being able to see from two worlds with a concentrated first person view and the “long view” of which land is “laid out like a relief-map” (p.2). Jim’s awareness of the similarities between his own map and the map of the birds is initiated as he rides a bi-plane for the first time, the flight providing him with “a new view” (p.54). This is also the view that Jim later reflects on, predicting it as the last “vision of the world he knew” (p.55) as he moves on to the other world. It is exactly this view that Jim sees while marching on “as he felt out of himself” (p.115), seeing the “scene from high up” as it might look from Bert’s Bi-plane. During this out-of-body experience Jim sees the lives of everything, “including his own”. From the long view of the soldiers’ lives, to the wildlife of “woodlice under logs” continuing in their “ordinary domestic arrangements” (p.117). It can be seen that Malouf’s use of the motifs of the birds and the map expresses the perpetual continuity of life that will always remain unaltered.

In Fly Away Peter, the author’s use of contrast between the relaxed, peaceful island of Australia and the battered battlegrounds in Europe develops the reader’s understanding of the reality of binary opposites in life. Malouf’s use of minor characters and recurring motifs powerfully communicates the effects that war has on men and the continuity of life.

Word Count: 1012