Jack Davis No Sugar Pdf (Premium × 2025)

Guide to Jack Davis's play "No Sugar"

3. Characters: Resistance and Control

The conflict in No Sugar is driven by the clash between two distinct groups: the colonized (the Millimurra family) and the colonizers (the government officials).

3. Food as Colonial Weapon

The title No Sugar is metaphorical. Sugar represents comfort and humanity. By withholding it, the state dehumanized Aboriginal people. Rations become currency, and every meal is a political negotiation. jack davis no sugar pdf

3. Mr. Neville (The Bureaucrat)

Davis brilliantly refuses to make Neville a cartoon villain. He genuinely believes he is saving the Aboriginal race through "absorption" (breeding out blackness). Reading his lines in a No Sugar PDF is chilling because his language is calm, clinical, and utterly devoid of empathy. Guide to Jack Davis's play "No Sugar" 3

Character Analysis Table

| Character | Role | Significance | | :--- | :--- | :--- | | Jimmy Millimurra | Patriarch | Fiery, proud, vocal. His death symbolizes the physical cost of resistance. | | Maude Millimurra | Wife & Mother | The emotional anchor. She endures quietly but never breaks. | | Billy Kimberley | Jimmy’s brother | The trickster. Uses humor and theft to survive. Provides comic relief without diminishing the tragedy. | | Gran (Milly) | Elder | Speaks only Noongar. Represents unbroken tradition and ancestral memory. | | Mr. Neal | Superintendent of Moore River | The banal bureaucrat. He believes he is helping "civilize" Aborigines. | | Cissie & Joe | The children | Their removal to domestic service mirrors the real Stolen Generations. | Jimmy Munday: The protagonist

The Millimurra-Munday Family

They represent resilience, humor, and dignity in the face of dehumanization.

  • Jimmy Munday: The protagonist. He is aggressive, defiant, and deeply scarred by his past. He represents the "warrior" spirit that refuses to be broken by white laws. His loud mouth is his weapon against injustice.
  • Gran Munday: The matriarch and the cultural anchor. She possesses the knowledge of bush tucker and traditional medicine (bush plums, woollybutt). She is the glue holding the family together when the government tries to tear them apart.
  • Joe Millimurra: Represents the younger generation. He is in love with Mary Dargurru. Their relationship and desire to leave the settlement symbolize hope for the future and the reclamation of agency.

1. Overview of the Play

  • Title: No Sugar
  • Playwright: Jack Davis (1917–2000), an Australian Aboriginal playwright, poet, and activist.
  • First Production: 1985 (Perth, Australia)
  • Genre: Realist drama / Historical fiction
  • Setting: Northampton, Western Australia, during the Great Depression (1930s).
  • Synopsis: The play follows the Millimurra-Munday family, a Noongar family forced to live on a government ration depot. It exposes the harsh realities of Aboriginal life under the Chief Protector of Aborigines, A.O. Neville, and the racist policies of the time—including forced removal of children (the Stolen Generations), curfews, and denial of wages and rights.

6. Study Questions for Readers (Using a PDF)

  1. Why does Davis choose a naturalistic, kitchen-sink style rather than symbolism or magic realism?
  2. How does the character of Jimmy (the young activist) differ from his elders’ approach to survival?
  3. What is the dramatic function of the white characters (Neville, Mr. Neal, the police)?
  4. In what ways does the title No Sugar operate as both literal policy and metaphor?
  5. How would you stage the final scene to emphasize hope or despair? (Refer to specific stage directions in the PDF.)

2. The Stolen Generations

The removal of Cissie and Joe to work as domestic servants is a direct dramatization of the forced child removal policies. Davis shows the trauma of family separation without sentimentality.