Themes

The main themes of the short story “Freddy Andrews” by Polly Borland are identity and racial bias. As you have seen, Freddy is “confused” (l. 1) about his identity given that he is a half-Aboriginal. His identity crisis is, in fact, caused by the racial discrimination Aboriginals are subjected to in Australia.

Identity

Many persons go through identity crises during their lifetime. One of the hardest questions to answer is: “who am I?”. This is because most of us have overlapping identities. We have a racial and ethnic identity, a legal identity, a professional identity and so on.

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Racial Bias

Racial bias is the main reason why Freddy feels confused about his identity. The problem is not only specific to Australian society. Racial discrimination is present in almost all multicultural societies, in which different racial groups meet. Yet, officially, it is not something accepted.

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Moreover, you can improve your way of analysing the short story by reading helpful informations about:

• motifs
• use of contrasts
• message