Area of Study #1 Reading and Responding

No Sugar Jack Davis: Unit 3

Tasks for AoS#1 (Reading and Responding):
SAC Oral presentation on a topic from the list provided.
Outcome Text response essay
1. Complete the holiday homework questions:
Q1. Who is Jack Davis? Dot point ten facts about him, his life, upbringing or interests that may be relevant to the play
No Sugar.
Q2. What was the Oombulgarri massacre and who was involved? OR What was the Tasmanian solution in regards
to dealing with Indigenous Australians?
Q3. How were indigenous rights and white Australian rights different in the period of this play (1929-1934)?
Q4. What are the significant contextual events or occurrences in 1929-1934 in Western Australia?
Q4. List 5 significant events in the play.
2. Create a glossary/ vocabulary list including definitions so that you can use this metalanguage in your text
response essays and your oral presentation (SAC):
Assimilation
Stolen generation
Dramatic irony
Half caste
Social realism
Pejorative
Split scene or cross cutting
Binary Opposition
Ideology
Catharsis
Displacement
Superiority/ inferiority
Perambulate model
Naturalistic
Dominant voices
Didactic
Dislocation
Colloquial
3. Social Context: Answer the following questions.
a. Gender roles. How were men and women treated differently in the No Sugar era? What roles were
Indigenous women expected to fulfil compared with Indigenous men?
b. Compare and contrast the representation of Indigenous Australian characters and white Australian
characters in the play. You could use a venn diagram, table or sub headings.
4. Performance Context:
a. How does the structure of the play (episodic) contribute to the themes, ideas and values of the play?
b. How are the spaces a reflection of the isolation and oppression experienced by Indigenous Australians?
c. How is time used to help convey ideas about the prolonged suffering and treatment?
d. Other than dialogue, how else does Davis give the audience information?
e. In what ways do the stage directions add value or significance to the events of the play?
5. Genre. What style of play do you believe best describes No Sugar and why? (Social or political commentary,
naturalistic, historical-based drama, docudrama, didactic play).
6. Language. Comment on the style of language used in the play what is its relationship to the plot, how does it
impact on the style/genre and what is its effect on the audience? (pejorative, colloquial, non-naturalistic,
Indigenous Nyoongah language).
7. Classify the play in terms of the narrative structure. Allocate the Acts and Scenes to the structure.
a. Orientation:
b. Complication:
c. Crisis:
d. Resolution:
8. What changes and what remains the same at the end of the play?
What changes by the end of the play?
What doesnt change at the end of the play?
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9. Create a list of the positive and negative ideas in the play.

10. Characterisation:
Abstract Antagonist Ideas:

Abstract Protagonist Ideas

Character who
manifests this:
How is
character
characterised to
show this idea:
Quotes
11.
12.

13. General Questions:

1. To what extent is No Sugar a successful play?
2. What was the cause of the conflict in the play?
3. In your opinion did the play end on a happy or hopeful note? Discuss.
4. How important are Jack Davis directions/information throughout the play?
5. Do you believe there were some more enlightened white characters in the play? Discuss.
6. What keeps Gran and the family going despite all their struggles and appalling treatment?
7. To what extent are the women in the play powerful? Discuss.
8. What are the 6 most significant events in the play?
9. Who is the most important character(s) and why?
10. What is the most prominent message, idea, theme or value in the play?
14. Focus Questions.
1. How are both poverty and resilience represented in A1:Sc1?
2. Why has Davis used cross cutting in A1:SC2?
3. Why is it important that women are the ones shown to stop the men from creating trouble A1:Sc3?
4. What is ironic about a white man like Al Jolson putting on black make-up and, as Jimmy says, makin out he was
black (pg. 33)?
5. Why do each of the three men charged receive different sentences A1:Sc5?
6. How do poverty and isolation create a sense of potential for tragedy in A1:Sc6?
7. What is ironic about the Sergeants comment about the Tasmanian solution in light of the diminishment in
government care and sustenance given to Northern Indigenous community A1:Sc7?
8. How does A1:Sc9 show the level of hypocrisy in the bureaucracy of the time?
9. Why does the Sergeant concede to Grans demands A1:Sc10?
10. Why does Davis have this significant meeting (A2:Sc2) happen while the characters are collecting water?
11. How does A2:Sc4 dramatically juxtapose despair and hope?
12. How is Billy characterise in A2: Sc6?
13. How is the audiences understanding of several Indigenous characters broadened in A2:Sc6?
14. How does A2:Sc7 create a feeling of hope and renewal?
15. In what ways does A3:Sc1 show devastation but also suggest hope and survival?
16. What does the A3:Sc2 sequence show us about Joe that was not obvious before?
17. Describe Joes attitude to being arrested A3:Sc4.
18. How does Davis use historical material (text speech) to make a comment on attitudes and values A3:Sc5?
19. What is the significance of Billy holding down Mary while Neal beats her A4:Sc2?
20. How is a sense of renewal and hope evident in A4:Sc3?
21. How and why does Davis encourage us to relate to Sister Eileens attitudes more than to Neals A4:Sc4?
22. What climactic events are given the most dramatic impact A4:Sc5?
23. Some critics see the singing of the parody verse of the hymn There is a Happy Land as indicating a moment of
defiance, whereas others see it as an act of resignation. Which do you think it is and why A4:Sc5?
24. Why does Milly appeal to Matron for a proper coffin A4:Sc6?
25. What is the significance of having Marys baby delivered by Gran A4:Sc7?
26. What is the significance of Billy giving Joe the whip as a parting gift A4:Sc9?
27. What is the symbolism of Joe and Mary being given a raw sugar bag that is filled with supplies rather than sugar
A4:Sc10?
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No Sugar Jack Davis: General Information

No Sugar is a play written by Jack Davis, an Indigenous Australian. It was first produced and performed by the
Playhouse Company and the Australian Theatre Trust at the festival of Perth in 1985. It was chosen to be performed
in Expo 86 in Canada. The play is about the conditions of life for Aboriginals in 1930s Australia at the hands of a
racist Australian society.

About Jack Davis (1917 2000)

Jack Leonard Davis grew up in Yarloop, Western Australia. His own mother had been forcibly taken away from her
family as a child, which created an interest and need to find out about his mothers tribal history.
Davis was sent to the Moore River Native Settlement at the age of 14 to learn how to become a farmer. This early
experience was important in stimulating his writing later on.

No Sugar Context The Stolen Generations

The Stolen Generations refer to the forced removed of Aboriginal and Torres Stout Islander children from their
families to be bought up in white families. The purpose of this was to bring up these children as white people so they
would not continue to behave as Aboriginals. Children were sent to institutions and families.
In reality these children were rarely treated as part of the family. They were given little to any education and were
expected to work hard as labourers or servants. This forced removal was actual Government policy from 1909 to
1969 however it occurred before and after this time and was supported by Government bodies, churches and
welfare organizations.

No Sugar Australia Day

On the 26th January 1788 the first fleet landed at Sydney Cove making the beginning of white Australians in
Australia. Since then Australia Day has been celebrated on the 26th of January, however for many this day is called
Invasion Day, Survival Day or Day of Mourning.
*****NOTES TO ASSIST SAC AND EXAM PREPARATION: No Sugar by Jack Davis: Dr Maria Joseph is a writer and
lecturer in literature.**********
First performed three years before the bicentenary of the white settlement of Australia in 1788, the Jack Davis play
No Sugar protests against the control of white government policy in Aboriginal lives. In particular, Davis' play
deplores the destructive effect of the West Australian government's forced removal of families from traditional
country during the Depression. While showing the government's damaging power, Davis uses parody and irony to
ridicule and undermine this authority, revealing a resilient Aboriginal family structure that defies attempts at
separation and decimation. The theatrical structure Davis employs enhances the juxtaposition between Aboriginal
and white worlds and has the effect of scorning the officiousness and callousness of regime of A.O. Neville, Western
Australia's Chief Protector of Aborigines.
The first scene shows the Millimurra-Munday family unified and, on the whole, contentedly absorbed in daily
activities. Ironically, David and Cissie play cricket and evoke an Australian icon in Don Bradman. This activity
increases familiarity for a white theatre audience but Davis also claims dual ownership of this icon and thus asserts
Aboriginal rights to equality. There is also an element of loss because the children are involved in a white pastime.
Indeed, the indication that all is not well with the Aboriginal world begins with Jimmy's disgruntled reaction to
"blackfellas dancin' ... down the street" for the centenary parade of the white settlement of Western Australia.
In act one, scene two Davis exaggerates this alienation by splitting the stage so the black and white worlds are visibly
divided. The worlds are briefly connected through Sergeant Carrol's telephone call but it is an "awful line" and the
white characters control the means of communication during discussions on the Aboriginal "problem" and the
"obstacles with the new reserve" without any consultation with those they are intent on moving. This division
between white and black worlds is also carried through in the language used by the characters and is used to garner
sympathy for the Aboriginal protagonists.

The Aboriginal characters largely use colloquial Australian, which allows them to connect with the play's majority
white Australian audience. Thus they fit the likeable Australian larrikin stereotype. Jimmy confesses, for instance,
that he has been convicted of "drinkin', fightin' and snowdroppin' ".
Davis challenges the audience's presumption of a familiar and recognisable English, however, by including Nyoongah
phrases and songs. This arrests power from a white audience and makes it aware that Nyoongah in fact is the
characters' cultural norm. Davis insists that Aboriginal languages remain alive, and that an Aboriginal perspective of
the world through its languages be acknowledged. Davis contrasts the Aboriginal characters' language with that of
the white authorities. It is only Frank Brown (with his suitable last name) who uses Australian slang in the manner of
the Millimurra-Munday family. He is the most sympathetic of the white characters because of his shared poverty, his
similar loss of home, and for his willingness to befriend the family.
Other working-class white characters, such as Sergeant Carrol, resort to racist and demeaning language such as
"Abos". Racism is also there in Neville's diatribes, though it is cloaked in officialdom and the "scientific" guise of
eugenics. When Neville enforces his budget cuts he has no consideration for the people on the receiving end of this
policy: "The proposed budget cut of 3134 could be met by discontinuing the supply of meat in native rations. Soap
was discontinued this financial year ..." Davis then demonstrates the effect on real people, like Cissie, who bemoans
being unable now to wash her hair, or the ironic praise Milly receives for keeping her family clean. Davis uses white
characters and their language to reveal Australian society's lack of empathy for Aboriginal feelings and humanity.
Davis constructs elements of parody in which some characters mock the authorities. Gran's persistent hectoring of
Carrol and disrespectful mispronunciation of his title "Chergeant" is comical. She is also feisty and fights for the
rights of her family, "They not slaves, Chergeant!". Parody is embodied especially in Jimmy, a trickster figure who
hovers between derisive humour and indignant outrage. Knowing that the white farmer Skinny Martin will ask for
fence-posting in payment for borrowing his cart to bring Cissie home from hospital, Jimmy suggests stealing one of
his sheep as revenge ("We'll git one of the skinny old bastard's sheep and bring it home on his own cart"). Jimmy
uses wisecracks in act four, scene five to mock Neville, who says, "Some of you might ponder why you are here."
"Too bloody right," Jimmy responds.
The parody in the play builds to a point when the whole of the Moore River community satirises the hymn There Is a
Happy Land" with their own words: "There is a happy land/ Far, far away,/ No sugar in our tea,/ Bread and butter we
never see,/ That's why we're gradually/ Fading away." This "happy land" is a mythical one of empty promises. The
singers take a sarcastic prod at the hypocritical "care" and "protection" given to them at Moore River. But they also
speak of their nostalgia for their lost country and the culture that goes with it. They laugh and walk away as the
whites attempt to sing God Save the King. Jimmy's tone now becomes one of direct, vehement protest at their
removal from Northam: "So he could have a nice, white little town, a nice, white little f------ town." The repetition of
"nice" here underscores the white middle class values that the presence of Aborigines at Government Well
offended.
Davis provides a symbolic ending to the play in which there is both tragedy and hope. Jimmy's death concludes his
own tragic journey with a "broken heart" at the humiliation of his people. Yet, Joe and Mary, like the biblical Joseph
and Mary of Christianity, have a baby whom they name Jimmy after his activist uncle. This baby and their defiant
return to Joe's country at Northam signal a continuing fight for justice. Billy's gift of the whip is a metaphor for the
fight. "No sugar" also becomes a defiant term. It is not so much a lament at what the government has stopped giving
them, but an imperative for self-sufficiency. This may be difficult, given that "Wetjala cut all the trees down",
disturbing the food ecosystem that traditional Aboriginal life relied on. But, metaphorically speaking, the MillimurraMunday family will try not to need any "sweeteners" from white people and will determine their own lives.
Symbolism/ motifs:
o

Whistle; Sugar bag; Yellow shirt, black pants; Magpie; Yellow and red ribbons; Tobacco; Red dress; Koodjie
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Text Response Essay

Types of essay TOPICS and INSTRUCTIONS: (You will receive a topic and instruction)
1. Character-based topics: Of all the characters Billy is the most complex in No Sugar. Discuss.
2. Theme-based topics: To what extent do Indigenous people suffer from both direct and indirect racism?
3. Quote topics: wetjalas in this town dont want us ere, dont want our kids at the school, with their kids. To
what extent is the play a condemnation of the treatment of Indigenous Australians?
4. Question topics: No Sugar is more of a portrait of life for indigenous people in 1930s Western Australia, than it
is a story. Discuss.
5. Construction: How does Jack Davis use characterisation and narrative techniques in No Sugar to show us the
racist conditions indigenous people endured in 1930s Western Australia?
NOTE: Ensure that you read the instruction carefully.
Discuss (Must make reference to both sides of the topic).
Do you agree? (Yes or no options are available as well as an exploration of both sides).
To what extent do you agree? (There is some truth to the statement. Partially, somewhat, fully endorse).
Introduce play and playwright. Comment on the relevant themes, ideas or contextual information.
Intro: 1
Give your perspective on the topic. Address the topic. Briefly mention key points related to the topic.
paragraph Define terms if necessary. Racism is represented in terms of physical treatment and psychological
repercussions. Address all aspects of the topic in your introduction (for example, family and violence).
Separate paragraphs into the different points exploring the topic. New paragraph for each new idea.
T:Topic sentence: Makes a clear statement in response to the topic.
E1: Evidence and examples. Including quotes.
Body 3-5 E2: Explain how these examples are relevant and specific to the topic.
paragraphs L: Links these ideas to key words and ideas in the topic. Use link words to link ideas and paragraphs together:
However, conversely, Nevertheless, Although, It could be argued, On closer examination, From a different
perspective, In another sense, Furthermore, Additionally, Juxtaposing this character
Make sure you have used metalanguage by using words which demonstrate your understanding of the
structures and features of the text eg play, scene, character, theme, symbol, aside etc.
Restate your viewpoint or perspective in response to the topic clearly.
Conclusion
Ensure there is a use of metalanguage in this paragraph noting the way the author has constructed the text
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for meaning in relation to the topic.
paragraph
Leave the examiner/ reader contemplating your insight.
Conclusion does not equal summary.

Useful metalanguage and phrasing: The [text type and title] exemplifies the [genre] because
[Authors name] explores [list themes] in his/her [text type] [Authors name] gradually reveals.
The [adjective] title alerts the audience to the significance of . The world of [setting]portrayed by [author] .
The theme of [theme] links characters together by
The protagonist of the text, [character name], invites/evokes sympathy/empathy/condemnation because
In [title] [authors name] explores [theme] against a backdrop of [setting] ..
In their [text type, title], [authors name] challenges beliefs that
Introductions:
Jack Davis play No Sugar chronicles the resilience of the Millimurra-Munday family during a period of
oppression, racism and self-proclaimed White Australian superiority.
Western Australian playwright Jack Davis represents the inequality experienced during 1929-1934 in his
naturalistic play No Sugar.
Indigenous Australian inferiority is coupled with their resilience in the play No Sugar by Western Australian
playwright, Jack Davis.
A post-colonial reading of the play invites the audience to recognise the profound repercussions for Indigenous
Australians during a period of colonial dominance.
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A.S
1.1
1.2

1.3

Quote: Analysis - Theme, character, symbol, motif, dramatic technique, idea

Jimmy: them bastards took our country and them blackfellas 6ancing for em. Bastards! p. 16
Frank: I been on the road already for six months...no work. P. 18
Sergeant: Natives best left to keep to themselves. P. 18
Sergeant: You might think your doin em a good turn, but youre not. Take it from me, I been dealin with em for years.
P. 18
Government of Western Australia, Fisheries, Forestry, Wildlife and Aborigines. P. 18
Neville: Unemployments hit thirty per cent according to the West. P. 19
Neville: Native weekly ration...two shillings and fourpence...sustenance paid to white unemployed...seven shillings per
week. P. 20
Neville: of eighty girls from the Moore River Native Settlement who went out into domestic service last year, thirty
returned....in pregnant condition p. 20-21.
Gran: Wetjala cut all the trees down. P. 22
Neville: if you provide the native the basic accoutrements of civilisation youre half way to civilising him. P. 24
Neville: If you can successfully inculcate such basic but essential details of civilised living you will have helped them
along the road to taking their place in Australian society. p. 24
Jimmy: I was the leadin choir boy at New Norcia Mission. P. 27
Frank: between the rabbits and a couple of bad seasons and the bank, the bloody bank, I lost it. P. 28

1.5
1.7

JP: Its my duty to protect natives and halfcastes from alcohol. P. 35

Neville: The natives entrance is around the back. P. 39
Constable: Niggers Department. P. 41
Sergeant: Between you and the gatepost, the Councild prefer it if you sent em to Moore River or somewhere. P. 42
Gran: An youre supposed to be native tector. P. 44
Constable: Should put a pinch of strychnine in the flour. P. 44

1.9

Neville: And found them to be....rotten with scabies, and as a result of ah, well, various submissions, its been
decided to transfer the entire native population to the Moore River Settlement. P. 47
Neville: Its essential that the town and shire are quite devoid of natives after the seventeenth. P. 47
Neville: Until the scabies are cleared up and a new reserve is gazetted.
Sergeant: Or until after the election. P. 48
Neville: Good, I dont needed to impress upon you the absolute confidentiality of the matter. P. 48
Jimmy: Whole town knows why were goin...Coz wetjalas in this town dont want us ere, dont want our kids at the
school, with their kids...p. 50
Jimmy: No, hes got 6othing against em. Not worth losin a bloody election over, thats all. P. 50
Jimmy: Come off it, Sergeant, how are they gunna get meat on the way? P. 51
Cissie: Gawd, hes black. P. 55
Milly: Hes seventeen next burnin season. P. 60
Joe: Them wetjalas treat you all right?
Mary: Gudeeahs? Matron and Sister Eileen are all right....but I dont like Mr Neal. P. 62
Mary: Some of them guddeeahs real bad. My friend went last Christmas and then came back boodjarri. P. 62

1.10

2.1
2.3
2.4

2.6
2.10

Billy: Not like my country, finish....finish. p.67

Neal: I cant see anything funny about this. Matron: I know you cant. p. 77

3.1
3.3

Mary: Never mind, its all over now. Joe: Itll never be over! P. 79
Sergeant: Council...have been getting on the Chief Protectors back. p. 83
Sergeant: Royal Commission on Natives; they had one about thirty years ago. A waste of bloody time. p. 83
Billy holds her outstretched over a pile of flour bags. Neal raises the cat-o-nine tails. p. 93

4.3
4.4
4.5

4.8

Neal: Theres a sort of unofficial directive on this [reading]; its the sort of thing which isnt encouraged by the
Department. p. 95
Neal: theres a lot of wisdom in the old adage that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. p. 96
Neville rises. The whites clap while the Aborigines remain silent. p. 97
Neville: It doesnt hurt to remind yourselves that you are preparing yourselves here to take your place in Australian
society, to live as other Australians live, and to live alongside other Australians; to learn to enjoy the privileges and to
shoulder the responsibilities of living like the white man. p. 97
No sugar in our tea/ Bread and butter we never see./ Thats why were gradually/ Fading away. p. 98
Neville: Youre a troublemaker, and a ringleader. You must listen to me. p. 99
Mary: He got wild because I wouldnt knuckle under to him. p. 106
Grans song: Woe, woe, woe/ My boy and girl and baby/ Going a long way walking p. 109