Kate Grenville's The Secret River

Kate Grenville describes the characters in The Secret River as ‘not heroes and not devils, but just human beings, stumbling from one small decision to the next and in so doing, without really planning it, creating the shape of their lives.’
The character of Will Thornhill in the novel makes several decisions some of which come from a place of circumstance and others that do not. Kate Grenville’s statement about the characters describes them to an extent as there is nothing extraordinary about them, they do not stand up for what is right as heroes do, they do not commit evil deeds as devils do. Will makes several decisions that spring from his family’s history and circumstance and some that are out of his own desire for something more for his
In Will’s eyes Sal was never short on food, especially indulgences such as oranges, sweetbread and soft white bread. Pg 17

Will comes from a long line of William Thornhills ‘Your name is common as dirt’ pg 11was a curse that his sister Mary had professed over him at a young age, his response to this was ‘William Thornhills will fill up the world’ pg 11 From this happening at a early age he made the decision to make himself stand out from the crowd, It’s through this that every other decision in his life is affected.

Will has various jobs while he is growing up in London, after his parents passed away he feels it is his responsibility to take care of those remaining in the household. In every job he makes the decision to steal not based on circumstances but out of a desire for excess. ‘No-one would miss a little as there is so many’ pg21 this is the first instance that Will is caught stealing, He tries to lie his way out of the situation and is whipped by Crocker on the docks as a public display. Will learns ‘not to get caught’ pg21 instead of not stealing at all, this is a trait that will follow him, to make decisions not from circumstance but by his own free will. There is an added element of peer pressure in this as well as his work colleagues forced the barrel to break open and encouraged him. He didn’t steal the sugar out of necessity or
This was brought about by Mr. Middleton not having any sons to leave the family business to, Will’s plan was to become a strong son-in-law and through this inherit the business. The day this happened Will felt all the closed opportunities of his life open up and he gained a sense of direction. Mr. Middleton had savings and assets but during the frozen month, all of his savings and investments where dried up, Will & Sal had seemed to have lost everything they had worked years to get ‘what point could there be to hoping, when everything could be broken so easily?’p49 It is during this period that Will feels like he has been ‘reduced to an animal’ p49 His character is described as feeling extremely empty and having a massive space where hope had been. This shifted Will back into his circumstantial decision making, the need to steal for survival mentality resurfaced and the family derived cycle began