Coonardoo: The Well in the Shadow: Analysis of Major Characters
"Coonardoo: The Well in the Shadow" presents a nuanced exploration of the lives of characters in a Western Australian homestead, primarily focusing on the intersection of Indigenous and colonial cultures. Central to the narrative is Coonardoo, an Aboriginal housemaid who embodies both strength and vulnerability. Her complex relationship with Hugh Watt, the son of Bessie Watt, highlights themes of love, obligation, and cultural tension. Bessie, a former schoolteacher, is portrayed as a pragmatic and insightful character who strives for her son's education while grappling with the cultural dynamics around her.
Hugh, although well-meaning, is depicted as emotionally conflicted, especially in his interactions with Coonardoo and his wife, Mollie, whose social ambitions create friction within their family. The story also features Sam Geary, a brash and opportunistic neighboring station owner, whose character contrasts sharply with the Watts' struggles. Through these characters, the narrative delves into themes of identity, belonging, and the impacts of colonialism on personal relationships and community dynamics. Overall, "Coonardoo" serves as a reflective lens on the complexities of life in early 20th-century Australia, revealing the deep connections and rifts between its characters.
Coonardoo: The Well in the Shadow: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Katharine Susannah Prichard
First published: 1929
Genre: Novel
Locale: Wytaliba, a cattle station in Australia
Plot: Social realism
Time: The late nineteenth century to the 1920's
Coonardoo, an aboriginal housemaid at Wytaliba station (homestead) in the north of Western Australia. She has dull golden hair, a thin, reedy voice, pretty hands and feet, and firm, pointed breasts. She is long-legged and wiry and is “as spirited as an unbroken filly.” A year older than Hugh Watt, she is devoted to him and exhibits a devouring love for him. Intelligent and authoritative in the uloo (aboriginal camp), she is patient and gracefully submissive in the homestead. She generously gives herself to Hugh when directed to do so by her husband but has the air of a faithful, deserted animal when he later shuns her and abuses her. She is “of more than usual intelligence” and is the nexus between the white and black characters.
Bessie Watt, a former schoolteacher who married Ted Watt, a good-looking, good-natured, feckless, and illiterate drunk who owned the million-acre station Wytaliba and died just after Hugh's birth. The aborigines call her Mumae (father); she understands their culture and is insightful, shrewd, and unsentimental, yet kind and practical. She is a manly, small woman with eyes “hard and blue as winter skies”; she is frugal and manages to pay off a large mortgage. She appreciates the value of education and sends Hugh to a school in Perth. She sees the unsuitability of Jessica as a station wife and forbids Coonardoo's marriage as a child. She is an admirable, hardworking outback person.
Hugh Watt, Bessie's son, who succeeds her as owner of Wytaliba. As a child, he is “a boy with a swag of ideals”; he has a sharp and scratchy voice, is blue-eyed and very assured and bossy, and plays with Coonardoo, learning her tribal lore. He has his mother's work ethic and fortitude, but he lacks her insight and flexibility. Restrained and reserved, he reads the Iliad and values honor and courtesy. Although he has habits of independence and solitude and has occasional fits of anger and dejection, he is generally high-minded, kindly, courteous, and gentle. He marries in a purely practical manner and does not understand the roots of loneliness in his family and himself. He is tormented by having had sex with Coonardoo, yet he truly loves their son, Winni. He is jealous of Sam Geary's lifestyle and success and is tormented by his abuse of Coonardoo. In most ways, he is “a good, ordinary little man.”
Jessica Haywood, Hugh's fiancée, who visits Wytaliba when Hugh returns from Perth at the age of twenty. She is a very pretty, delicate, and blossomy creature who plays the piano. She is upset by unshaven men, aborigines, and the isolation of the bush; she returns, disillusioned, to the city.
Mollie Watt, Hugh's wife and formerly a maid-of-all-work in her aunt's boardinghouse in Geraldton. She enters marriage not for romance but in expectation of social advancement. She has five daughters in five years. She is a small woman with straight dark hair; her face is round and plump, belying her rasping nature. Although she is a good cook and household manager, she cannot get along with aborigines, especially after she concludes that Hugh and Coonardoo are the parents of Winni. Although she gives evidence of being a commonsense person, she has “all the obstinacy of a small mind.” To her credit, she lasts ten years in the bush, but her extravagant social life in Perth (and the consequent financial drain on Hugh) results in the bank's foreclosure and the loss of Wytaliba to Sam Geary. Hugh's early praise for her is a premature evaluation that he later regrets.
Warieda, the principal stockman and horsebreaker on Wytaliba, where he is the imperious leader of the aborigines. A proud upholder of traditional ways, he “lends” his wife, Coonardoo, to Hugh while Hugh is grieving over Bessie's death. Warieda is tall and handsome, arresting, and magnetic; his wild, bright eyes are challenging; and his dark, sinewy arms are like tree branches. Although reared under the aegis of the Watts, he succumbs to the traditional “pointing the bone” by a tribal magician and wanders off and dies.
Sam Geary, the unprincipled, opportunistic, and sensual whiskey-loving owner of a neighboring cattle and sheep station. He is brash and brutish and has a jaunty bearing that goes with his feeling that he is always master of the situation and the business superior of Hugh. He is bowlegged, sun-scorched, bullock-shouldered, and slouched; his eyes are bulbous and pale blue; he has straight, fair eyelashes; and tufts of hair protrude from his nostrils. He has a number of aboriginal gins (women) as consorts, though Sheba is his primary one; he teases Hugh for not taking black women for his pleasure and for working so hard. Eventually, he becomes the owner of Wytaliba.
Phyllis, the oldest daughter of Hugh and Mollie Watt. She leaves for the coast at the age of nine and returns a decade later, tired of city social life and determined to carry on the tradition of her grandmother, Bessie, as the wife of an optimistic stockman, Bill Gale.