Fly
Grenville explicates, “Lancelot Percival lay in wait for Rooke and usually managed to give him a punch in passing, or spill ink on his precious linen shirt. The other boys watched without expression, as if were normal, like killing a fly.” The metaphoric fly infers that Lancelot’s tendency to demean Rooke is normalized. His bullying habit cannot be confronted by his peers for they regard it as conventional. Moreover, the fly depicts Rooke’s lowliness in the eyes of Lancelot.
“Old friend”
Grenville expounds, “At the Academy his only consolations were found within the pages of books. Euclid seemed an old friend. Things that equal the same thing also equal to another. The whole is greater than the part. In Euclid's company it was as if he had been speaking a foreign language all his life, and has just now heard someone else speaking it too." Reading Euclid's works is contributory to minimizing Rooke's lonesomeness at the academy. Euclid's books make him feel that Euclid is present to accompany him. Therefore, the books are a personification of Euclid.
Medium
Grenville expounds, “Rooke noticed that the slaves never looked him in the face…Their own features were exotic, powerful as if curved from a stronger medium than the insipid putty of English faces.” The medium depicts the imagery of stronger black faces. The strength could be attributed genetic factors and the difficult conditions they are subjected due to their status as slaves.
Untamed
Grenville writes, “Rose hill, Rooke thought, that untamed place where no rose had ever grown? Where the soil was fertile only by comparison with the grey sand of Sydney cove?” Greenville uses ‘untamed’ to underscore Rose hill’s extraordinary fertility which has not been exploited through cultivation. Fertility makes the location ideal to agricultural activities because productivity is guaranteed. Moreover the presence of a river in the locality is an added resource that would boost agricultural activities.
“A Species of Conversation”
Grenville elucidates, “The governor would not have welcomed warfare, but Rooke thought he would have understood it. War was a species of conversation .But this silence was neither war nor peace.” Launching a war against the natives would be an overt communication that the natives are required to be subjects. Subduing the natives would automatically render them subjects. The silence minimizes communication between the governor’s people and the natives.
