Quote:
Originally Posted by fantasyfan
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I agree, too, that there are actually two romantic elements. Strachan clearly falls in love with Jean quite early on--witness his genuine upset when he learns that she doesn't intend to return. This also explains why he doesn't tell Joe where Jean is and that she is searching for him. Mean? Yes. But he is still smarting from his own sense of loss. What Strachan doesn't realise is that Jean does love him--but as a father figure. He adjusts to this in the end and on his visit finds that Jean and Joe regard him as part of their family and even name a child after him.
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Yes, Strachan was definitely in love with Jean and that does explain some of his actions. This seemed even more apparent to me when I saw the serialization for television a number of years ago. On screen such scenes as Strachan making the journey all the way to Australia to give Jean a pair of ice skates just because he has received a letter from her expressing dissatisfaction with her life there. What turns out to have been just a temporary mood swing of hers.
Anyway by the end Strachan seems content to assume the role of father figure, or perhaps unrelated uncle, to Jean and her family. Very much like John Jarndyce and Esther Summerson in
Bleak House, eh?
To me the racism was not so much about things like “Miss Boong.” As for example when Jean is starting up her ice cream parlor she defers building the separate section where Native Australians will be allowed to enter. I suppose that given the overall tone of the book it would have been too much to expect an immigrant to Great Britain to even express any disapproval of such blatant segregation in Australia in the 1950s, but it still in noticeable.