In James Maloney’s novel to Kill the Possum, an Anglo- Australian family (The Beal’s) are tormented by a monsters cruelty (Ian Cartwright) and a girl (Kristy) is desperate to live a normal life, we find that the redeemable characters; Kristy Beal, Dylan Kane, Eric & Fiona Kane, and Kristy’s friends, provide the reader the positive focus which outweighs the dark nature of the themes in the novel.
To begin with, although Dylan doesn’t see his father at all, he clearly has a very positive and loving relationship with his grandparents; Eric and Fiona Kane. “Over the years, they’d been to the zoo, the beach a few times and watched half a dozen Disney movies”, this shows us that Dylan and his grandparents have spent many time being together and they clearly care about Dylan: “Your our grandson, Dylan, and we love you just as we love the others”. Dylan also enjoys spending time with them and “he loves them for their patience”. This relationship that Dylan has with his father’s parents provides a very positive focus in the novel which outweighs the negative relationship that Dylan has with his father.
Another positive aspect that we fine in the book is that, Dylan and Tim Beal are a lot closer together. Dylan cares very much to what happened to Tim Beal: “He remembers feeling intensely angry at what Cartwright had done, especially to Tim”. As time passes, their relationship develops, they make plans on killing Ian Cartwright and want to help and support each other. A positive theme that we read in the novel is that whenever Tim puts himself down, Dylan is there to hold him up: “I’m so tired of being a weak piece of shit”, “Don’t say that, don’t ever say that about yourself, okay!” This shows that Dylan does truly care about him which brings another positive aspect in the novel.
Moreover, another point is that Kristy was seen