1) What is the meaning of
the clocks and why are they all set to one O'clock or there abouts?
I talked a bit about the
clocks in an answer to a similar question; just to repeat -
I'm interested in clocks as
a way of dividing up time and organising life into segments, which is a
relatively modern European thing I think, and became especially prevalent after
the Industrial Revolution and working life became very regulated. Clocks seemed
one of those things that would certainly confront an indigenous person as very
unnatural and possibly incomprehensible. The rabbits, throughout the book, seem
obsessed with measuring and dissecting space and time - so fences, roads and
clocks have a similar function for them.
Also, the clock on top of
some flags is quite significant, though probably not obvious. For a long time,
European Australians more or less believed that history began in this country
only upon their arrival, and before that nothing was important or very
noteworthy. So planting a flag to 'own' a place is coupled with planting a
clock, to say that one group of people now owns time, or the historical record
of that place. So that the only important memory now is rabbit-memory.
As to why the clocks are
often set at one o'clock, I had to go back and have a look! Not all of them
are, some are set at five o'clock, and other times... I was probably trying to
guess what time of the day it looked like in the pictures. In the fights page,
all of the rabbits have synchronised clocks over their eyes, which was to show
the blindness of war, that soldiers must act like robots without opinions or
views, and just follow orders (like the recent invasion of Iraq, which many
soldiers knew was wrong, but weren't allowed to ask questions about it).
2) Why have you represented
the ship, looking like different ships from different eras all in one?
Generally to make the ship
look strange, so that we don't identify it as belonging to any particular era,
or culture even. Often when I write or illustrate, I try to make my ideas as
universal as possible. So I still draw on real historical experience, but by
mixing things together I am able to make something new and unusual, that nobody
has seen before (including myself!). With the rabbits' technology generally, it
is a mixure of all sorts of things, so it looks vaguely historical, but does
not refer to any particular time or place.
3) What is your meaning for
the phrase "might=right"
It is the idea that because
you have the ability or power to do something (being mighty), then it is okay
for you to go ahead and do that. This has always been a problem that people
have dealt with throughout history, that questions of fairness and ethics are
often put aside or muddled up by those who simply want to exert their power,
force ideas on others or make money.
The other thing that has
often happened historically is that history itself gets written so that things
that may have been wrong or questionable are made to appear right and good -
like the saying 'the winners write the history books'. So in the case of the
rabbits, they are saying that because they have succeeded, then they are right
to have done whatever it took to get to that point.
4) Why are all the rabbits
numbered?
I talked about this a bit
earlier; essentially it could mean various things and doesn't have a particular
significance, except to say that the rabbits like using numbers a lot, or
counting and making records and organising everything in terms of class, rank
and value. They also like using symbols, the meaning of which is not always
clear, and numbers are very abstract symbols.
5) Why have you represented
the white people with rabbits and black people with wallabies?
I talked about this a bit
also early on, particularly making the point that I don't see the rabbits as
directly representing white people, or the wallabies (or numbats as I call
them) as being Aborigines. I deliberately made everything weird and
'hard-to-name' in the book so that readers might see that there is a similarity
in this fictional world to our own history, of the colonisation of Australia by
Europeans. But I did not want the pictures to be about different races, so much
as different ideas - the rabbits represent a way of thinking more than anything
else.
Of course, John Marsden
wrote the text which kind of set it up for rabbits, but I did like the metaphor
because rabbits are an introduced species that have caused a lot of
environmental destruction, a bit like us, who have adopted a European-based
culture in this country. I also didn't want them to look just like rabbits, but
almost more like aliens, and that the whole story is not even taking place in Australia, but
rather an Australian-ish imaginary world. Somebody from another country,
knowing nothing about Australia, would still be able to relate easily to this
story I think, particularly because many places around the world have
experienced colonisation and its problems; America, Europe, Asia, Africa and so
on.
