Theme Morality In William Thornhill's The Secret River

The theme morality in The Secret River is when you take a little, you need to give a little back. Morality can be defined as what is right and what is wrong. The main action the characters do that can be viewed into two different perspectives is stealing. One perspective is, stealing is okay to do it because it is used to survive off of. Another perspective can be stealing is not okay because it is taking something that is not yours. In the book stealing is an everyday job for some of the people. William Thornhill, the main characters friends and family survives on stealing. They live in London, the city were many people are poor, hungry, and jobless. The poor people steal anything and everything. What they mostly steal is food to have a full …show more content…
Morality is about how you treat people, being honest, how you look at life, etc. William Thornhill in the book is poor and he has to treat the people above him with respect because they have more power over him. If he didn’t, then the people with more power would make his life even more miserable. The rich looked down on the poor negatively as if they had nothing to do in this world even though most of the poor worked for the rich. It wasn’t okay for the rich to treat the poor badly. They didn’t have very good morals. Honesty is also part of morality. When William gets sent to jail because he steals Brazilian wood from Mr. Lucas he lies about it. He rehearses his lie in jail and what he says in court is “I’m as innocent as a child unborn” (65). Even though he lied, he was still guilty and was sentenced to death. Being honest is what defines you. Its what defines your morals and how you portray them. Even though William knew that he was guilty he believed that it was okay to lie because he wanted to survive for himself and his …show more content…
He later comes in conflict with the Aborigine’s so he asks Blackwood for help. “ A mans got to pay a fair price for taking. Matter of give a little, take a little” (104). He considers Blackwood’s advice but it doesn’t workout for him as he later comes in conflict with the Aborigines. The Aborigines were the people that originally lived on the land first. They are being kicked out because the British also want the land. William claims that the land he is living on is his and that the Aborigines have no right to take it. There was a lot of conflict between the land and the Aborigines that a fight breaks out. Many of the Aborigines were killed and in the end lost some of their land. It wasn’t moral for Williams to take something that is not his and kill people