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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Only the Animals, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Interconnectedness of Humans and Animals
Animals and War
Human Cruelty
Kindness and Compassion
Summary
Analysis
The camel notices that just beyond the campfire is the goanna (a type of lizard) that’s been following the camel’s group for days. The camel’s owner, Mister Mitchell, is asleep, with the queen’s bones next to him. But the poet that joined them in Hungerford, Henry Lawson, is awake, listening to the goanna scuttle through the leaves. It’s the night after Christmas and the men have all gorged themselves on rich food and too much rum.
The story opens with a somewhat sinister scene: a lizard that seems predatory, a man sleeping beside bones, and men who have drank too much alcohol. The overeating in particular could indicate that these men are prone to overindulgence, decadence, and selfishness. It’s also significant that the camel is the narrator and that he’s observing the people around him. This suggests that the story will focus on the relationship between people and animals and center the animals’ perspective.
Themes
Lawson says that he told Mitchell to put the bones back, but Mitchell is stubborn and has been ever since he was a boy—the two men grew up together. The camel knows that Lawson talks to himself whenever he’s dehydrated or drunk, which he almost always is these days. Lawson continues, saying that like the ghost of Christmas past, the goanna will take Mitchell to hell for “it.” The camel can tell that Lawson is scared of the goanna. The camel is scared of it too, since it’s more like a crocodile than a lizard.
This passage depicts both Henry Lawson and Mitchell as somewhat unhinged—Lawson because he’s nearly always drunk and babbling, and Mitchell because he’s seemingly obsessed with these bones that he’s carrying. The passage again carries a sense of foreboding, as Lawson is convinced that Mitchell shouldn’t be holding onto the bones, and that doing so will incite some sort of retribution f from the lizard (it’s still unclear at this point what the connection is between the lizard and the bones, but this moment implies that the lizard has been stalking the group because Mitchell took the bones when he shouldn’t have). It’s also significant that both Lawson and the camel are scared of the goanna. The camel already seems like a much more levelheaded than either of his human companions—so this adds more weight to his fear of the lizard.
Themes
Lawson says that his mother used to read Dickens and Poe to him when he was little, and the camel wonders if Lawson is talking to himself or addressing the camel. Nobody has spoken to the camel in a casual, conversational way since his handler, Zeriph, died years ago. The camel thinks back to where Mister Mitchell last filled the waterbags, in Hungerford. It’s the strangest place he’s seen since coming to Australia. It sits right on the border between Queensland and New South Wales, with a rabbit-proof fence running down the main street. After sampling some beer on the Queensland side, Lawson joked that they should’ve called the town “Hungerthirst” and noted that there were rabbits on both sides of the fence.
Zeriph is the only person who’s ever talked to the camel like a friend, and thus is the only person who’s treated the camel like a living, feeling being. Though the camel doesn’t specify how long Zeriph has been dead, it seems long enough that the camel has almost forgotten what it’s like to have a close relationship with a person. On another note, the descriptions of Hungerford speak to the desolateness of this part of Australia. The mentions of the rabbit-proof fence in particular suggest that the colonizers are trying to control the wild animal populations, but their attempts aren’t working.
Themes
Lawson continues to ramble. He says he grew up in Pipeclay, where his and Mitchell’s fathers were some of the last men to work in the goldfields. Most of the holes were collapsed, and huts were haunted—Lawson saw his first ghost there. The camel wants to say that he sees ghosts, too—the ghosts of the other camels who were shipped with him to Australia from Tenerife. He was the only camel to survive the journey. He also sees the ghost of a bachelor camel he killed. Zeriph felt terrible for the other camel’s handler, who grieved like one might for a child rather than an animal.
Lawson doesn’t say what spirits haunt the huts, but the mention of the collapsed holes suggests that it’s the ghosts of local miners who died in the fields. When the camel thinks to himself that he sees ghosts too, he suggests that he’s not so different from his human companions. He—and camels like him—suffered as a result of being transported to Australia to support the colonists, just as the miners likely suffered. But whereas Lawson can tell the miners’ stories, the camel can’t share his story with anyone but the reader.
Themes
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Lawson says that Ben Hall’s ghost haunted their schoolhouse. Hall was a bushranger (thief) whom troopers murdered, and Lawson grew up thinking of him as a hero. Humorously, Lawson’s little brother could never decide if he wanted to be a bushranger or a trooper—the only choices for boys from the bush. Slowly, Lawson lies back and points at the moon. He says that in Sunday School, he was told that pointing at the moon is “wicked.” He was also told that “our blacks are the lowest race on earth.” There was a painting of Aboriginal people hung in the schoolroom, but Lawson thought “they looked more like you, like camels, peculiar creatures that shouldn’t exist, than like the black men we know.” The camel thinks that despite the differences between humans and camels, he does exist. He feels homesick.
Lawson suggests that for boys who grow up poor in this part of Australia, they can either become outlaws like Ben Hall or law enforcement like the troopers who killed him. That a man’s prospects are limited to either becoming thieves or apprehending thieves suggests that criminality abounds here. Meanwhile, Lawson depicts Aboriginal Australians as less than human, similar to the way his childhood Sunday School lessons depicted Black people. By using the word “creatures,” Lawson suggests that Aboriginal Australians are more like animals (and particularly strange-looking ones, like camels, at that) than people. This passage confirms that Lawson is indeed talking to the camel directly, but he’s not doing so to form a relationship with the camel like Zeriph was implied to; instead, Lawson is literally saying that the camel is ”peculiar” and “shouldn’t exist.” Hearing this, the camel suggests that while there are undeniable differences between camels and humans—and, the book implies, between Aboriginal Australians and white Australians—that doesn’t mean one group is lesser than and “shouldn’t exist.”
Themes
Lawson says that once, a Black man’s ghost came to one of his mother’s séances. The first hour of the séance had been boring, but then, a spirit asked to speak to Mitchell’s father, who was there inquire about where he could find gold. Through the medium, the spirit asked Mitchell’s father if he knew of Hospital Creek. His face went pale, and he said yes—he used to work at a stockyard there. When the medium then described seeing fire and bodies, Mitchell’s father angrily told the medium to keep her mouth shut “like the rest of us.” Back in the present, Lawson throws his empty bottle toward the goanna and says that not long after this séance, Mitchell’s father struck gold.
Here, the spirit references the Hospital Creek Massacre of 1859, which was a retaliatory massacre of Aboriginal Australians. Accounts of the event vary, but it’s generally accepted that at least several hundred Aboriginal Australians were murdered. Mitchell’s father’s pale face and anger—coupled with his omission that he used to work at the stockyards at the site of the massacre—heavily imply his direct involvement in the event. But given that Mitchell’s father strikes gold not long after this conversation, he’s clearly able to be successful despite his implied involvement in the massacre.
Themes
The camel tries to remember if Mitchell dug up the queen’s bones near a creek. It was hard for the camel to tell, since Mitchell dug up the bones during the dry season, when creeks are all empty. Plus, that was when the goanna had first appeared, so the camel was distracted. Upset, the camel spits some cud into the fire. Zeriph nearly trained this habit out of him, but the camel can’t help it when he’s upset. Lawson finds it funny. Lawson digs out his notebook and reads his account of the last time he encountered spitting. He’d asked a shepherd in Hungerford whether he preferred New South Wales or Queensland. The shepherd had spat from one side of the fence to the other, and then climbed through the fence to repeat the process in reverse.
The fact that the goanna appeared right when Mitchell dug up the bones may suggest something supernatural. Since the story just discussed Mitchell’s father’s implied involvement in the Hospital Creek Massacre, the goanna’s sudden appearance after Mitchell digs up the bones—and the goanna’s continued stalking of the group as Mitchell holds onto the bones—seems to imply that Mitchell can’t escape his father’s violent past. On another note, the fact that Zeriph almost trained the camel to stop spitting indicates that Zeriph tried to make the camel’s behavior as polite—and perhaps as human—as possible.
Themes
The camel knows that Lawson isn’t here just to drink rum or renew his childhood friendship with Mitchell. Rather, Lawson’s companions are perfect fodder for a writer: the son of a rich man, Mitchell is “a madman collector on a camel,” who’s transporting the stolen bones of an old Aboriginal queen, while a goanna stalks along behind. The camel has heard Lawson say that he often includes animals in his stories to make the human characters look worse.
The book opened with the mention of Mitchell carrying “the queen’s bones,” and this passage explains what that means in greater detail: Mitchell dug up the stolen bones of an Aboriginal queen. This passage also clarifies that the book’s Henry Lawson is likely the same as the historical Henry Lawson, who’s one of Australia’s most famous authors. Drawing on Lawson’s career as a writer, the camel speaks to the relationship between writers and interesting people. Lawson is interested in Mitchell and the camel for the sake of putting them in his stories, but this implies that he cares less about his companions’ wellbeing. This passage also complicates Lawson’s view of humans and animals. Whereas earlier he suggested that the camel was a “peculiar creature” and “shouldn’t exist,” here he suggests that the camel makes Mitchell look like a “madman” by comparison.
Themes
The camel thinks back to the start of their journey. Though camels aren’t unusual in Australia (they’re being used to build a railroad), Mitchell stood out and attracted attention for riding a camel like “a fancy horse.” The first day of their journey, Mitchell bought the camel in Bourke and burnt his bare feet because he didn’t want to wear boots. This behavior made the camel fear that Mitchell would get them lost, so the camel bit a hole in a flour bag he was carrying to leave a trail. When the flour ran out, the camel cursed himself for not running away after Zeriph died. These days, herds of wild camels run through Australia’s interior, destroying the very fences, railroads, and water pumps they helped build.
The way Mitchell burns his feet and rides the camel is if it were a “fancy horse” makes him look foolish, unexperienced, and like a poor leader for this expedition. In this sense, the camel supports Lawson’s earlier point that animals make humans look worse by comparison. Indeed, the camel seems far more adept at surviving in the Australian wilderness than Mitchell. The mention of the feral camels supports this, as they can clearly survive in the bush without humans’ help, while humans need camels to build things like railroads and water pumps that make the bush habitable.
Themes
The goanna scuttles nearer to the fire and freezes. Lawson notes that goannas eat meat—and supposedly kill kangaroos, drag off sheep, and eat sleeping men’s eyes. The camel looks to Mister Mitchell, who is sleeping with the bones. He’s curled up, just like the queen’s bones had been in her grave. Lawson mutters that Mitchell’s father was fixated on “those bones,” but clarifies that these aren’t the bones from the massacre at Hospital Creek. This queen lived many years ago. Mitchell believes that if he has her bones, the ghosts of Hospital Creek will leave him alone. The goanna hisses.
In this story, wild animals are far more powerful than people are, and what Lawson shares here about goannas’ carnivorous (though perhaps exaggerated) behavior supports this idea. Just as the wild camels destroy settlements themselves (including railroads, water pumps, and fences), goannas seemingly prey on people and their livestock. And Lawson suggests that Mitchell is at risk of a goanna attack in part because of his obsession with the queen’s bones—once again, there’s a connection between this goanna and the bones. Meanwhile, Mitchell seems to believe he’s capable of besting both supernatural forces and wild animals—something that seems unlikely, especially given that the goanna hisses right at this moment in Lawson’s retelling.
Themes
Lawson sings softly, and then interrupts himself. He can’t imagine dying of thirst. He reads the camel the last written words of a stockman who died of thirst: “My ey Dassels. My tong burn. I can see no More God Help.” Lawson sighs that he has to use this in his own writing—death in the bush is a great theme. The camel decides that in the morning, he’s going to run away. He can’t understand why men like Lawson and Mitchell do such terrible things. The camel doesn’t think he’s blameless, but he can’t be blamed for things that Mitchell and Lawson do.
The camel becomes so disturbed by Lawson in this passage because Lawson clearly doesn’t care about his real-life subjects. Here, Lawson essentially says that if the camel dies, he won’t care—it’ll just turn into an interesting plot point for one of his stories. Besides sensing that his own wellbeing is at risk, the camel also feels like Lawson and Mitchell are unfairly implicating him in Australia’s colonial history, and the camel wants no part in this.
Themes
As Lawson rambles on, Mitchell suddenly leaps to his feet and shouts at the goanna. He says that his father warned him about the goanna and said to kill it. The goanna, he says, is the one who’s actually haunting him. Lawson tells Mitchell to ignore the animals, which are their “spectators.” But Mitchell resolutely loads his muzzle, and Lawson, who wants to see what will happen, doesn’t try again to stop him. He aims at the goanna, which bolts toward the camel.
Mitchell seems to prove Lawson’s earlier assertion that he’s a madman by addressing the goanna with such sudden fervor. When Lawson tells Mitchell to ignore the animals, it implies that he doesn’t see the goanna—or any animal—as much of a threat. This is curious given that Lawson himself has just detailed the way goannas are known to eat humans’ eyes while they sleep, and Mitchell has been sleeping while a goanna ominously looks on. This implies that Lawson wants to see some sort of combat between Mitchell and the goanna so that he has more to write about. That Lawson considers the animals their “spectators” positions humans as more important and powerful than the animals (i.e., humans are the main characters in a play, while the animals are only the audience members), but the book as a whole rejects this point throughout.
Themes
The goanna is dead—and the camel can feel his cheek against the sand. He remembers how, years before, Zeriph loosened the ropes that held a grand piano on his back. Zeriph had been proud that the camel had carried a luxury item, but both he and the camel hated that the ropes had hurt him just so that humans could entertain each other. The camel tries to turn his head and thinks he sees that the goanna turned itself into a woman. It’s actually Lawson, laughing. The camel warns Lawson that he’s not the only one who can tell a story about death in the bush.
The camel’s memory of packing the grand piano speaks to humankind’s willingness to exploit animals for their own selfish gain. Because a rich person decided they wanted a piano—a luxury item rather than a necessity— the camel had to endure an agonizing journey with the instrument its back. It’s also significant that the camel dies at Mitchell’s hand. Humans can be like Zeriph and care deeply for their animals—or they can kill them in a fit of rage or madness.
Themes
