essay on the rabbit proof fence

Jotted Lines

A Collection Of Essays

Rabbit-Proof Fence: Summary & Analysis

Summary: .

In 1931, three aboriginal girls escape after being plucked from their homes to be trained as domestic staff and set off on a trek across the Australian Outback. 

Analysis: 

Rabbit-Proof Fence takes as its subject the forced removal and ‘re-education’ of mixed-race Aboriginal children in early twentieth-century Australia. Given this backdrop, we might expect the film’s title to be metaphorical, and indeed it is – though not necessarily in the way we might expect. Dividing the whole of Western Australia, the fence was put up in the early 1900s to separate the state’s infamous plague of rabbits from arable land. In Rabbit-Proof Fence, though, the man-made barrier does not divide race from race, or even person from person, but rather provides the route map for a journey home. In the case of Philip Noyce’s film, itself a homecoming of sorts for the Australian director based throughout the 1990s in Hollywood, the fence helps lead three young girls – Daisy, Gracie and the surrogate parent Molly – back to their northwestern home after escaping from the Moor River settlement in which they had been interned: a journey, on foot, of 1,500 miles. This is no mere poetic conceit on the part of the film’s makers: this trip, remarkably, did take place, and is the basis of Doris Pilkington’s 1996 book Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence. Yet the film’s central route provides a suitable image for the children’s perspective on the world, and above all, a resistance to the spatially and racially informed segregation policies of the period. 

The epic canvas of the film, which begins with striking overhead shots of the Australian outback as a kind of scorched abstract painting, is the location for a relatively short (90 minutes) and in structural terms very simple story. At the film’s opening, the young girls are marked for removal and future integration into ‘civilised’ white society by A.O. Neville, the ‘Chief Protector of Aborigines’ (a post the real-life Neville held from 1915 to his retirement in 1940). Once established at the settlement, where they are forced to abandon their mother tongue in favour of English language and etiquette, the three children manage to make a break for freedom and begin the long walk home. Along their trip – for which the fence, thousands of miles along the way, provides the link – they must outwit not only the increasingly reluctant police staff under the orders of Neville, but also the sharper and more effective senses of Moodoo: an Aborginal ‘tracker’ whose main task is to hunt down and return escapees.1 Essentially a tale of endurance and will under the most extreme of conditions and circumstances – Noyce, along with his director of photography Christopher Doyle, take pains to evoke the parched and shelterless terrain through which the girls walk – the film, sold and distributed internationally by the American company Miramax and veteran British producer Jeremy Thomas, struck a chord with filmgoers beyond its country of origin. 

If international audiences warmed to its story of courage and resilience, in Australia the film’s production and release was not without controversy. Funded by the Australian Film Finance Corporation, Rabbit-Proof Fence was made in the wake of the 1997 Royal Commission for the investigation of, amongst other things, the ‘stolen generations’ described in the film, and was in tune with the popular message of historical revision and apology central to the 2000 Sydney Olympics opening ceremony (the games at which Aborignal athlete Cathy Freeman lit the Olympic torch, and later became the first athlete of Aboriginal descent to win an individual gold medal). Because of its overt condemnation of a government policy enacted as late as 1971, and its implicit attack on decades of historical whitewashing, the film became the subject of conservative and extremist criticism both during its production and on its subsequent release (Petzke 2007: 235–6). Such negative publicity made Rabbit-Proof Fence a subject of national discussion, and may have helped it become – almost without precedent for a film on this subject – the second most popular domestic film of the year. 

That the success of Rabbit-Proof Fence makes it something of a phenomenon only reflects, of course, the limited nature of such representations within the longer history of Australian cinema. The high-profile status (amongst critics, if not necessarily for paying audiences at the time of release) of films such as Walkabout (1971) or The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978), both of which feature Aborigines as key protagonists, only emphasises their relatively unusual subject matter. In her 1993 report on Aboriginal representation in cinema (actually written at the request of the Australian Film Commission), Marcia Langton argues that the narrow range of available imagery in the mainstream gives rise to a vicious circle of incomprehension. As she writes: ‘Critics find it difficult to discuss Aboriginal works because of an almost complete absence of critical theory, knowledge of, and sensibility towards Aboriginal film and video production’; and yet it is precisely from ‘[f]ilm, video and television … that most Australians “know” about Aboriginal people’ (Langton 1993: 23, 33). Films such as The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, then, about a young Aborigine driven to mass murder by systematic injustice, may merely have confirmed prevalent racist conceptions of ‘beserk boongs hacking to death white ladies’ (Colin Johnson, quoted in O’Regan 1996: 59), notwithstanding the film’s subsequent critical recuperation. Yet Langton also makes the interesting point that ‘correct’ representations, and in particular the conviction that only Aboriginals can create ‘right’ or ‘true’ representations of Aboriginal life, itself carries racist assumptions about the Aboriginal people’s mutual similarity and collective otherness to the foreign observer (1993: 27). 

From this perspective, the marriage of RabbitProof Fence’s story with a white male Hollywood director is informed not just by commercial pragmatism, but also by a desire to move beyond the closed circle of ‘correct’ representation. Peter Gabriel’s score, for example, in the same vein as his various ‘world music’ collaborations throughout the 1990s, fuses indigenous motifs into an epic, globally resonant soundscape. This effort to make the universal out of the particular (a key to success in global cinema markets) characterises the whole film. As their journey is readable within familiar generic frameworks, especially that of the road movie or the prison-break drama, the girls’ typicality, not their difference, is accentuated. But also, despite its apparent aim of representing the hidden side of Australian history, the story of Rabbit-Proof Fence is actually at one with the very Australian cultural myth of the underdog: what Ingo Petzke calls the ‘little Aussie battler’, exemplified amongst other figures by the outlaw Ned Kelly (2007: 239). 

Combined with the fact that the film draws on a fascination with the wilderness, and in particular with a form of wandering – concepts which, Petske suggests, are ‘deeply enshrined in the Australian psyche’, from the song Waltzing Matilda to the Mad Max films (ibid.) – Rabbit-Proof Fence is not so much an ‘unofficial’ representation as an archetypical piece of Australian national cinema. Or more accurately, it is national cinema in the sense that national cinemas do not represent the nation as such, but rather contribute to an imaginary construction of the nation through and as myth; narrative forms which, to follow the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss (1968), provide imaginary solutions to social contradictions. Like the Hollywood Western for an increasingly urban and later suburban American population, the Australian outback film has clearly been a powerful object of romantic identification or phantasmic projection for a largely coastal (and globally diasporic) metropolitan population. Similarly, heroic underdogs on the wrong side of authority’s mistreatment have typically provided a powerful imaginary outlet for anti-Imperialist sentiment; be it the human cannon fodder ordered over the top by British officers in Peter Weir’s 1981 film Gallipoli, or the honest Aussie cricketers battered and bruised by the unsporting tactics of the English captain in the TV miniseries Bodyline (1984). This is a practice described by Tom O’Regan as the cinematic ‘dedominionizing’ of Australia (1996: 67–8). 

Rabbit-Proof Fence’s screenwriter Christine Olsen has claimed her determination to bring Phillip Noyce on board (going so far as to track down the director’s private Hollywood telephone number) was influenced by the way his films offer an unbiased and human view of all protagonists.2 This is a fine intention, though it is arguably not so obvious in this particular work. British actor Kenneth Branagh brings his customary subtlety and intelligence to the role of Neville: a man who, as Branagh portrays him, was driven by an apparently well-meaning colonialist conviction that civilisation through ethnic ‘whitening’ was a good thing for all concerned. A possible shortcoming of the film, though, is that it does not provide the space for a more detailed portrait, in the way a documentary or a longer television series based on the events might have been able to do. As a result, Neville inevitably comes across as a sort of sophisticated child catcher, albeit a fairly articulate one; a view encouraged by the way he is frequently filmed through tilted camera angles, expressionistically offsetting the perpendicular lines of his monochromatic office. The effect of this, in distinct contrast to the fluid, luminous images of the three girls’ world, is to evoke Neville’s British bureaucratic mindset as a kind of derangement, a world apart from the ‘natural’ landscape inhabited by Daisy, Grace and Molly. 

This decision to film the two respective worlds in different modes nevertheless generates what are, in terms of the history and politics of representation, very appropriate visual effects. The separation of the Aborigine’s and the coloniser’s space – on the one side, warm elemental tones of earth, sky and flora, on the other, the cold geometry of white civilisation – is also a distinction between ways of seeing. While our first glimpse of the three girls sees them clambering and climbing via close, floating camera movements, the first view from ‘outside’ is a long shot from the perspective of the police constable who will later take them away. This shot therefore establishes a detached, clinical and above all ‘ethnographic’ point of view: the sort of ‘othering’ vision that underpinned much of the colonial project, and which is most obviously represented in this film by Neville, who at one point provides a photographic slide show for the educational benefit of middle-class metropolitan ladies. 

Significantly, then, the world from the three girls’ viewpoint is not so much represented by a photographic vision – symptomatic of the technology of Empire – but by an idea of non-visual sensory connectivity underscored by Gabriel’s music, but most pointedly represented by the sense of touch. When at one point the girls grasp the wire of the rabbit-proof fence, a reverse shot shows Molly’s mother doing the same thing, as if the gesture physically bypasses and transcends distance and authority. As film theorists such as Laura Marks (2000) have discussed, the emphasis in film on touch and tactility has a political potential, especially in the representation of marginality or exile, partly in its resistance to objectifying visual regimes. In this instance, it is especially significant that the physical, tactile object connecting the girls from their home was a government-sanctioned divide, drawn on a map: that most clinical embodiment of man’s (sic) desire to visually order and master the world. It is also notable that, the one and only time that Molly and Neville actually meet (during the girls’ brief residence at Moor River), Neville is seen in a direct point-of-view shot from Molly’s perspective: a distorting, fish-eye image that makes him look like an alien species, accentuating what to Molly (and by implication, us) must be the strange and unfathomable mystery of his being. 

Neil Archer

Notes 

1. Moodoo is played by David Gulpilil, Australia’s most well-known Aborigine actor. Gulpilil brings a familiarity and humanity to his performance that accentuates Moodoo’s own ambivalence towards his (enforced) profession. 

2. As described on the audio commentary track for the UK DVD. 

Cast and Crew:

[Country: Australia. Production Company: Rumbalara Films and Olsen Levy. Director: Phillip Noyce. Screenwriter: Christine Olsen. Cinematographer: Christopher Doyle. Editors: John Scott and Veronika Jenet. Music: Peter Gabriel. Cast: Everlyn Sampi (Molly), Tianna Sainsbury (Daisy), Laura Monaghan (Gracie), Kenneth Branagh (A. O. Neville), David Gulpilil (Moodoo).] 

Further Reading 

Marcia Langton, ‘Well, I heard it on the radio and saw it on the television … ’, Sydney, Australian Film Commission, 1993. 

Laura U. Marks, The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment and the Senses, Durham NC and London, Duke University Press, 2000. 

Tom O’Regan, Australian National Cinema, London and New York, Routledge, 1996. 

Ingo Petzke, ‘Rabbit-Proof Fence’, in Geoff Mayer and Keith Beattie (eds), The Cinema of Australia and New Zealand, London: Wallflower, 2007, pp. 233–9. 

Dora Pilkington, Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence, Brisbane, University of Queensland Press, 1998. 

Claude Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology, London: Penguin, 1968. 

Source Credits:

The Routledge Encyclopedia of Films, Edited by Sarah Barrow, Sabine Haenni and John White, first published in 2015.

Related Posts:

• Cultural Theory and Images
• The Journey of Man by Spencer Wells (Documentary): Summary & Analysis
• The Last Wave - Summary & Analysis
• The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert: Summary and Analysis
• Mad Max (Film): Synopsis & Analysis
• The Butterfly Circus: Summary and Analysis

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, rabbit-proof fence.

Now streaming on:

The most astonishing words in "Rabbit-Proof Fence" come right at the end, printed on the screen as a historical footnote. The policies depicted in the movie were enforced by the Australian government, we are told, until 1970. Aboriginal children of mixed race were taken by force from their mothers and raised in training schools that would prepare them for lives as factory workers or domestic servants. More than a century after slavery was abolished in the Western world, a Western democracy was still practicing racism of the most cruel description.

The children's fathers were long gone--white construction workers or government employees who enjoyed sex with local aboriginal women and then moved on. But why could the mixed-race children not stay where they were? The offered explanations are equally vile. One is that a half-white child must be rescued from a black society. Another was that too many "white genes" would by their presumed superiority increase the power and ability of the aborigines to cause trouble by insisting on their rights. A third is that, by requiring the lighter-skinned children to marry each other, blackness could eventually be bred out of them. Of course it went without saying that the "schools" they were held in prepared them only for menial labor.

The children affected are known today in Australia as the Stolen Generations. The current Australian government of Prime Minster John Howard actually still refuses to apologize for these policies. Trent Lott by comparison is enlightened.

Phillip Noyce's film is fiction based on fact. The screenplay by Christine Olsen is based on a book by Doris Pilkington , telling the story of the experiences of her mother, Molly, her aunt Daisy and their cousin Gracie. Torn from their families by government officials, they were transported some 1,500 miles to a training school, where they huddled together in fear and grief, separated from everyone and everything they had ever known. When they tried to use their own language, they were told to stop "jabbering." At the time of the adventures in the movie, Molly ( Everlyn Sampi ) is 14, Daisy ( Tianna Sansbury ) is 8 and Gracie ( Laura Monaghan ) is 10. The school where they are held is not a Dickensian workhouse; by the standards of the time, it is not unkind (that it inflicts the unimaginable pain of separation from family and home does not figure into the thinking of the white educators). The girls cannot abide this strange and lonely place. They run away, are captured, are placed in solitary confinement. They escape again and start walking toward their homes. It will be a journey of 1,500 miles. They have within their heads an instinctive map of the way and are aided by a fence that stretches for hundreds of miles across the outback, to protect farmlands from a pestilence of rabbits.

The principal white character in the movie is A.O. Neville ( Kenneth Branagh ), who in 1931 was the administrator of the relocation policies and something of an amateur eugenicist, with theories of race and breeding that would have won him a ready audience in Nazi Germany. That Australians could have accepted thinking such as his, and indeed based government policy on it, indicates the sorry fact that many of them thought aborigines were a step or two down the evolutionary ladders from modern Europeans. That the aboriginal societies of Australian and New Zealand were remarkably sophisticated was hard for the whites to admit--especially because, the more one credited these native races, the more obvious it was that the land had been stolen from their possession.

As the three girls flee across the vast landscape, they are pursued by white authorities and an aboriginal tracker named Moodoo ( David Gulpilil ), who seems not especially eager to find them. Along the way, they are helped by the kindness of strangers, even a white woman named Mavis ( Deborah Mailman ). This journey, which evokes some of the same mystery of the outback evoked in many other Australian films (notably " Walkabout "), is beautiful, harrowing and sometimes heartbreaking.

The three young stars are all aborigines, untrained actors, and Noyce is skilled at the way he evokes their thoughts and feelings. Narration helps fill gaps and supplies details that cannot be explained onscreen. The end of the journey is not the same for all three girls, and there is more heartbreak ahead, which would be wrong for me to reveal. But I must say this. The final scene of the film contains an appearance and a revelation of astonishing emotional power; not since the last shots of " Schindler's List " have I been so overcome with the realization that real people, in recent historical times, had to undergo such inhumanity.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

Now playing

Art College 1994

Simon abrams.

Matt Zoller Seitz

Evil Does Not Exist

Glenn kenny.

Challengers

Terrestrial Verses

Godfrey cheshire.

Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg

Marya e. gates, film credits.

Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002)

Rated PG For Emotional Thematic Material

Everlyn Sampi as Molly

Tianna Sansbury as Daisy

Kenneth Branagh as Mr. Neville

Laura Monaghan as Gracie

David Gulpilil as Moodoo

Directed by

• Phillip Noyce
• Christine Olsen

Based On The Book by

• Doris Pilkington

Latest blog posts

The 10 Most Anticipated Films of Cannes 2024

The Importance of Connections in Ryusuke Hamaguchi Films

Saving Film History One Frame at a Time: A Preview of Restored & Rediscovered Series at the Jacob Burns Film Center

The Beatles Were Never More Human Than in ‘Let It Be’

Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence

Doris pilkington, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

English settlers claimed Australia as a British colony in the late 1700s, marking the beginning of a long and insidious process of displacement and extermination for Australia’s indigenous people, the Aborigines. In Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence , Doris Pilkington writes that in the early days of colonization many Aboriginal tribes believed their colonizers to be spirits (or gengas ) rather than human beings, and thus underestimated or failed to understand what a grave threat colonizers posed to their land, culture, and lives. British colonizers not only killed and enslaved Aboriginal people systematically—they also systematically laid waste to Aboriginal culture, forbidding Aborigines to speak their own languages, practice their own traditional laws, and perform their tribes’ sacred rituals. In examining the effects of racism and colonialism on her own family’s history, Pilkington shows how the English tried repeatedly to skew their actions as beneficial to Australia’s indigenous population. This attitude led to the creation of government settlements like the one described in Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence, where half-castes (Aboriginal children of mixed racial descent) were held in captivity with the intention of being forcibly assimilated into white society.

In their writing, English colonizers frequently described the ways in which they deprived their “black servants” of wages and dignity, paying them “little more than rice” and assuring both themselves and one another that the Aboriginals were “grateful for small things.” One newspaper article from 1861 described the annual distribution of blankets to Aboriginal people as an “insult”—an insufficient and degrading means of making “reparations.” Yet the article stated that “the scanty supply of food doled out to this miserable remnant of a once numerous people is received by them with the most lively gratitude.” This destructive line of thinking—that the dispossessed and bereaved Aboriginals were grateful to accept these meager handouts in recompense for the decimation of their people—led directly to the creation of “government settlements” (in practice, internment camps) such as the Moore River Settlement, where Pilkington’s mother Molly , along with her sisters Daisy and Gracie , were sent as young girls. The children of this “Stolen Generation” (as well as Pilkington’s own) were constantly being surveilled by officials from the Department of Native Affairs, who saw the “ever-increasing numbers of half-caste children” in Australia as a threat to white supremacy. As a result, government officials separated as many part-Aboriginal children from their families as they could, forcing them into settlements where they would be “educated” and distanced from their Native roots.

The devastating effects of racism and colonialism are encapsulated in this vicious system. White settlers came to Australia, conquered the Aboriginals, and often raped Native women or otherwise coerced them into exploitative sexual relationships. As for the mixed-race children who resulted from these unions, the British soon contrived an elaborate bureaucracy whose sole purpose was to assimilate them into white society. A.O. Neville, Chief Protector of the Aborigines (an ironic title indeed), made his dreadful purpose even clearer; he hoped to “merge [mixed-race children] into our white community and eventually forget there ever were any Aborigines in Australia.”

Pilkington writes about her mother and aunt’s escape from the settlement and their return home, after which A.O. Neville wrote a letter in which he stated, “it’s a pity that those youngsters have gone ‘native’ […] They were attractive children, and ought to have been brought in years ago.” Neville’s letter highlights the sinister ways in which white Australians masked the violence of their actions, hiding behind titles like “protector” and feigning benevolence and “pity” even as they express feelings of ownership of and disgust for the Aboriginals. Racist attitudes such as these perpetuated the mechanisms of Aboriginal oppression and internment until the mid-1970s, still just seven years after Aboriginals were granted equal rights in 1967.

The racism faced by Doris Pilkington’s family (and virtually all other Aboriginal people) at the hands of white Australians is rooted in the colonialist practice of exploiting and eventually eradicating entire peoples and cultures under the banner of “civilization.” This process is made possible by the false idea that colonizers are somehow “protecting” or “helping” the people they oppress, saving them from their “primitive” ways. By writing about the racism her family encountered under colonial rule, Pilkington situates the far-reaching effects of racism and colonialism within the history of Australia, and the much longer history of the Aboriginal people. 

Racism and Colonialism ThemeTracker

Racism and Colonialism Quotes in Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence

The Nyungar people, and indeed the entire Aboriginal population, grew to realize what the arrival of the European settlers meant for them: it was the destruction of their traditional society and the dispossession of their lands.

The white settlers were a protected species; they were safe with their own laws and had police and soldiers to enforce these rules.

As a further insult by the white invaders, an act of goodwill in the form of an annual distribution of blankets to the Aboriginal people was established. This generally occurred on Queen Victoria’s birthday. The Illustrated Melbourne Post of 20 August 1861, page 9, described this event as “a sorry return for millions of acres of fertile land of which we have deprived them. But they are grateful for small things, and the scanty supply of food and raiment doled out to this miserable remnant of a once numerous people is received by them with the most lively gratitude.”

Molly grew into a pretty little girl. Her mother was very proud of her and her father brought her gifts of clothing and pretty colored ribbons. […] As she grew older, Molly often wished that she didn’t have light skin so that she didn’t have to play by herself. Most of the time she would sit alone, playing in the red dusty flats or in the riverbed depending where her family had set up camp. The dust-covered child stood out amongst her darker playmates. The Mardu children insulted her and said hurtful things about her. Some told her that because she was neither Mardu or wudgebulla she was like a mongrel dog. One morning, her mother told her some exciting news. Two of her aunties had babies, little girls, and they were both muda-mudas like her. Molly was very happy. Now she had two sisters.

Molly and Daisy had just finished eating when all the camp dogs began barking. All eyes turned to the cause of the commotion. A tall white man stood on the bank above them. Fear and anxiety swept over them when they realized that the fateful day they had been dreading had come at last. They always knew it would only be a matter of time before the government would track them down. When Constable Riggs, Protector of Aborigines, finally spoke his voice was full of authority and purpose.

“I’ve come to take Molly, Gracie, and Daisy with me to go to school at the Moore River Settlement.”

The rest of the family just hung their heads refusing to face the man who was taking their daughters away from them.

“You should have seen the other ones who were locked up for running away,” [Martha] said. “They all got seven days punishment with just bread and water. Mr. Johnson shaved their heads bald and made them parade around the compound so that everyone could see them. They got the strap too.”

When the sons and daughters of the landed gentry and businessmen and professionals such as doctors, lawyers and politicians, were sent away to boarding schools to be educated they were likely to be given pleasant rooms that would be theirs for the duration of their schooling. Instead of a residential school, the Aboriginal children were placed in an overcrowded dormitory. The inmates, not students, slept on cyclone beds with government-issue blankets. There were no sheets or pillow slips except on special occasions when there was an inspection by prominent officials. Then they were removed as soon as the visitors left the settlement and stored away until the next visit. On the windows there were no colourful curtains, just wire screens and iron bars. It looked more like a concentration camp than a residential school for Aboriginal children.

Watching the three girls disappear into the open woodlands, [Mrs. Flanagan] said loudly to herself, “Those girls are too young to be wandering around in the bush. They’ll perish for sure. They don’t know this part of the country. And the three of them with just dresses on. It’s a wonder they didn’t catch cold. I’ll have to report this to Mr. Neal for their own good before they get lost and die in the bush. It’s my duty. When she had made her decision she went inside and lifted the earpiece of the telephone.

There was much excitement when the girls at last reached the rabbit-proof fence. The fence cut through the country from south to north. It was a typical response by the white people to a problem of their own making. Building a fence to keep the rabbits out proved to be a futile attempt by the government of the day. For the three runaways, the fence was a symbol of love, home and security.

“It’s a pity that those youngsters have gone ‘native,’ but it cannot be helped. They were attractive children, and ought to have been brought in years ago. This emphasizes the necessity for Police Officers to report the presence of half-caste children in the bush. I know this is done now, but it seems to have been neglected in some districts in the past.”

Home — Essay Samples — Entertainment — Rabbit Proof Fence — A Review Of The Movie Rabbit Proof Fence

A Review of The Movie Rabbit Proof Fence

• Categories: Movie Review Rabbit Proof Fence

About this sample

Words: 490 |

Published: Nov 8, 2021

Words: 490 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Works Cited

• Branagan, M. (2002). Rabbit Proof Fence: A Film, Its Critics and Its Audience. UWA Publishing.
• Cowan, C. (2003). Rabbit Proof Fence. Australian Screen Education, (31), 43-45.
• Ebert, R. (2003). Rabbit Proof Fence. RogerEbert.com.
• Goodall, H. (2002). Rabbit Proof Fence: The Screenplay. Currency Press.
• Nettlebeck, A. (2004). The Film Rabbit Proof Fence and its Political Implications. The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 15(2), 219-230.
• Nochimson, M. P. (2005). The Rabbit Proof Fence, the Yellow Brick Road, and the Meaning of Home: The Problem of Landscape and Belonging in No Place like Home. In Dying to Belong: Gangster Movies in Hollywood and Hong Kong (pp. 113-133). Wiley-Blackwell.
• Simpson, C. (2005). Rabbits, Walls, Fences and Thoughts: The Rabbit Proof Fence and the Sea Change in Australian Politics. Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 19(2), 203-217.
• Sturma, M. (2003). Rabbit Proof Fence: A True Story. Australian Book Review, (255), 22.
• Sullivan, A. (2003). Rabbit Proof Fence. Screen Education, (32), 69-70.
• Zurba, R. (2007). Rabbit Proof Fence. The Hollywood Studio System: A History (pp. 228-232). Rowman & Littlefield.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Dr. Karlyna PhD

Verified writer

• Expert in: Entertainment

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

4.5 pages / 2006 words

3 pages / 1291 words

1.5 pages / 750 words

4.5 pages / 1994 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Rabbit Proof Fence

What does it mean to be a leader? Do you need power over millions like Hitler during world war 2, or is leadership a position earned not given? To even further the complexity of the question, what does it mean to lead [...]

The American Dream varies for individuals, but for most it includes providing a stable home for their children and ensuring future generations will have more opportunities to become successful. In the play, A Raisin in the Sun [...]

The controversy surrounding Brett Easton Ellis's American Psycho and Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange relates primarily to the central themes that are explored in both books. Nevertheless, the brutality and explicit [...]

Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange is a novel pervaded by a multifaceted and intrinsic musical presence. Protagonist Alex’s fondness for classical music imbues his character with interesting dimensions, and resonates well [...]

"The woman looked at the tree: the fruit would be good to eat; it was pleasing to the eye and desirable for the knowledge it could give. So she took some and ate it; she also gave some to her husband and he ate it. Then they [...]

Many philosophers have believed for centuries that no intrinsic meaning exists in the universe. From this belief emerged many responses, including absurdism and existentialism. Although all are heavily influenced by the beliefs [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

Home Essay Examples Entertainment Movies

Essays on Rabbit Proof Fence

Controversial time in australian history in rabbit proof fence, indigenous society on the screen in rabbit proof fence, australian identity in the rabbit proof fence and samson and delilah, the stolen generation and the australian freedom riders in rabbit proof fence and blood brothers, cultural collision in rabbit proof fence, top similar topics.

• Documentary
• Film Analysis
• Movie Review
• Blade Runner
• The Truman Show
• Spirited Away
• Boyz N The Hood
• Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind

We use cookies to give you the best experience possible. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002 Film) Summary

by Phillip Noyce

These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.

Written by g g and other people who wish to remain anonymous

Rabbit-Proof Fence is a film set in 1930's Australia, in the rather small town of Jigalong. Molly and Daisy , who are sisters, are 14 and 8 years old, respectively.

The film begins with Mr. Neville coming to the girls' village and informing them that they must be relocated. Because of the rhyme and his wishes to move them away, the girls call him Mr. Devil. The new place that the girls must go to is an internment camp in the Moore River Valley.

Mr. Neville is consistently rude to the children because of their race - one of their parents was white, while the other was Native Australian. It is Neville's firm belief that Native Australians are a nuisance, and therefore must be contained like animals.

The girls are taken to the camp, where they are told they will be taught a career. Although it could be considered a career, they are educated in laboring and will likely be house servants when they grow older.

One day, the girls, along with some friends that they had made at the camp, decide to run away and go back to Jigalong. Seeing that the sky is about to rain, they know that it is now or never - it doesn't usually rain, and the water will wash away their tracks. The girls do escape, and the "tracker" for the internment camp, Moodoo, tries to find them.

The friend that the girls had brought along was Gracie, who is informed by someone in a community (that was informed Neville) that her mother is waiting for her in a nearby town. Gracie decides to leave the other girls to take a train to get to her mother, but is recaptured by the camp, as this whole thing was a trap.

Molly and Daisy, meanwhile, are more fortunate. They are able to escape Neville's search, and return to Jigalong. Neville decides that enough time, money, and effort has already been spent, so officially ends the search for them.

Update this section!

You can help us out by revising, improving and updating this section.

After you claim a section you’ll have 24 hours to send in a draft. An editor will review the submission and either publish your submission or provide feedback.

Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002 Film) Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002 Film) is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Study Guide for Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002 Film)

Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002 Film) study guide contains a biography of director Phillip Noyce, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002 Film)
• Character List
• Director's Influence

Essays for Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002 Film)

Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002 Film) essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002 Film), directed by Phillip Noyce.

• Power and Delusion in Noyce's 'Rabbit Proof Fence'
• Determined Characters in the Film "Rabbit-Proof Fence"
• The Representation of Racism against Australian Aborigines in Phillip Noyce's Rabbit-Proof Fence

Wikipedia Entries for Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002 Film)

• Introduction

• Entertainment
• Environment
• Information Science and Technology
• Social Issues

Home Essay Samples Entertainment Rabbit Proof Fence

The Rabbit-Proof Fence: Portrayal of Colonization in Australian Fiction

*minimum deadline

Cite this Essay

To export a reference to this article please select a referencing style below

• Phantom of The Opera
• Taxi Driver
• Princess Mononoke
• Blade Runner

Related Essays

Need writing help?

You can always rely on us no matter what type of paper you need

*No hidden charges

100% Unique Essays

Absolutely Confidential

Money Back Guarantee

By clicking “Send Essay”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement. We will occasionally send you account related emails

You can also get a UNIQUE essay on this or any other topic

Thank you! We’ll contact you as soon as possible.

Rabbit-Proof Garden Fencing That Keeps Your Veggies Safe

If you've got a garden, then your vision of rabbits is less Peter Cottontail and more Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog. Rabbits can absolutely devastate a garden; they'll eat the plants and vegetables and leave nothing behind. The most successful way to keep rabbits out of your garden is by putting up proper fencing. But, your run-of-the-mill, idyllic suburban fence won't always do. Instead, you need a rabbit-proof fence. Avoid spending a fortune on someone's latest gadget and put together your own rabbit fences to keep your garden bunny free.

Characteristics of the Best Rabbit-Proof Fences

You're not alone if your harvests have been ruined by little bunny teeth. Gardeners have had bunny problems for centuries. But, rabbit fences will come to the rescue. While you can purchase pre-fabricated rabbit-proof fences, there are ways to construct your own. Either way, be sure to find or make a fence with these important characteristics.

• Bunny-proof garden fences are wire mesh, and the smaller the better. Chicken wire works best, as even baby bunnies cannot squeeze through its openings.
• Rabbits are capable of digging under most fences, so you should bury the wire. It's important to bury your fence at least a foot to prevent rabbits from simply digging under it. The most effective way to bury your fence is to dig a trench about eight inches wide. Lay the wire in the trench forming an L shape with the L facing outward. Then fill in the trench. This L shape is most effective at keeping rabbits from burrowing into your garden.
• Another deterrant is putting in a "hot wire" or electric fence. You need two hot wires, one that's two inches from the ground and one that is four inches from the ground. When the rabbits touch the two wires, it closes a circuit and shocks them. Just make sure to use a charger meant for a garden fence; it won't kill the rabbits, simply repel them.
• Put in a tall fence and rabbits'll balk. Rabbits can't climb well and can't jump too high. A fence that's a yard in height is quite adequate to keep rabbits out.

How to Build a Rabbit-Proof Fence

If you're a savvy gardener with massive plots, then you've probably got some materials and know-how in your corner. If you're interested in putting together your own rabbit-proof fence, we've got a simple solution for you.

Materials You'll Need

When building your own rabbit-proof fence for larger gardens, you're going to need:

• Steel fence posts - one per 10 feet of fence
• 60" wide chicken wire - enough to circle garden
• Fence clips (usually sold with fence posts) - five per post
• Shovel - to dig trench
• Wires and garden electric fence charger, optional

Instructions

• Purchase chicken wire that's at least 60" high. This'll ensure the fence is at least 36" tall when it's finished.
• Dig a trench one foot deep and eight inches wide at the bottom of the whole fence.
• Lay the chicken wire in the trench forming an L shape that faces out toward the outside of the fence. Think of the wire as the bottom shorter slash on the L and the fence line as the taller one.
• Attach the wire to the poles, pulling it tight. Use five wire clips per post to attach the wire, one at the top, one at the bottom, and the rest evenly distributed between those two clips.
• Fill in the trench with dirt.
• For extra security, you may attach two wires, one at two inches and one at four inches from the ground and electrify them with a garden electric fence charger.

Quick Tip When building a rabbit-proof fence, place your steel fence posts every ten feet. Any further apart, and the wire sags in the middle letting the rabbits get through it.

How to Build a Portable Rabbit Fence for Small Gardens

If rabbits are a problem in a small garden area or you want particular plants to reach a mature level before allowing them to grow unprotected, making portable rabbit-proof fence panels will do the trick. You can store the panels when not in use and pull them back out when needed. They're relatively simple to make and require minimal supplies. And, if your green thumb can't be tamed, you can always make additional panels to fit your growing garden's size.

To make some portable rabbit-proof fencing, you'll need:

• 36" long x 2" wide wood strips, 4 for each panel created (ex.: 16 for a small square)
• 36" long x 36" wide pieces of chicken wire, 1 per panel
• Heavy duty stapler and staples
• Small nails
• Wire cutter
• Flexible wire

Follow these six simple steps to bring your portable rabbit fencing to life:

• Depending on the thickness of the wood strips, nail or staple them together to form a square panel that is 36" x 36". You need at least four panels to secure an area.
• Wearing gloves, cut the chicken wire into 36" x 36" pieces with wire cutters.
• Lay the piece of prepared chicken wire on top of the wood panel and staple it in place. Make sure to pull the wire tight so there aren't any gaps.
• Dig a trench that's 6-7" deep and as wide as the number of panels you've made around the small garden area you're protecting.
• Place a panel into the trench and cover with soil, firming it up with your foot so it stays in place. Make sure at least 6" of the panel's bottom is covered. Continue until you have all your panels installed around the small garden area.
• Use flexible wiring and attach to the top, middle, and bottom side portion of two panels, wiring them together so they stay in place. Continue until you have all the panels wired together at the sides.

Commercial Rabbit-Proof Fences

There aren't very many commercial rabbit-proof fences available, which is why most people make their own. However, there are a few you can rely on. Two fences that're specially made to keep rabbits out of your garden are:

• YARDGUARD 28 inch by 50 ft, 16 gauge Rabbit Fence - This green wire is specifically designed to keep rabbits out of the garden, with small mesh squares at the bottom and larger ones at the top. However, it's not tall enough to bury a foot in the ground and still have it be tall enough to keep rabbits from going over it, so they may burrow under it. It costs just over $40.
• Everbilt Green PVC Coated Welded Wire 4 ft by 50 ft - This wire is made of heavy-duty galvanized steel yet is light and easy to use when creating your barrier. The mesh is small enough to keep rabbits and other pests out while large enough for you to get a view of your garden. It should be installed with U-posts and at a reccommended depth of at least one foot in the ground. A roll is about $100.

Protect Your Garden From Wild Bunny Teeth

Rabbits are disarmingly cute, bouncing around your yard until they attack and sink their teeth into your veggies. Instead of waiting for them to mount an attack on your garden, take these simple precautionary measures and build a rabbit-proof fence. The rabbits might not be happy, but your flowers, fruits, and veggies totally will be.

Home / Essay Samples / Entertainment / Rabbit Proof Fence / A Reflection On The Movie The Rabbit Proof Fence

A Reflection On The Movie The Rabbit Proof Fence

• Category: Entertainment
• Topic: Movie Review , Rabbit Proof Fence

Pages: 2 (895 words)

Views: 1022

• Downloads: -->

--> ⚠️ Remember: This essay was written and uploaded by an--> click here.

Found a great essay sample but want a unique one?

are ready to help you with your essay

You won’t be charged yet!

Game of Thrones Essays

Miss Representation Essays

Minecraft Essays

Video Games Essays

Call of The Wild Essays

Related Essays

We are glad that you like it, but you cannot copy from our website. Just insert your email and this sample will be sent to you.

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service  and  Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Your essay sample has been sent.

In fact, there is a way to get an original essay! Turn to our writers and order a plagiarism-free paper.

samplius.com uses cookies to offer you the best service possible.By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .--> -->