When Clare is finally able to exact revenge on the soldier who murdered her baby, it is an ugly affair. However, even this hope for justice is eventually mired in scarlet layers of murky morality. Through their shared experiences of trauma and misery, however, Clare and Billy are able to slowly see the value in one another, and in their shared struggle to visit retribution on those who have wronged them. Stolen from his tribe as a boy, Billy lost his culture, his family, and even his name to the horrors of his “civilized” conquerors. Billy, for his part, does not need Clare, and has his own judgments for the “white devils” who have taken everything from him. Helpless to make her way through the treacherous brush of Tasmania on her own, Clare needs Billy. It isn’t until she is forced to rely on him, time and time again, that she begins to respect him. Clare is no exception to this rule, calling him a savage, a black, and “boy” for much of the film. Billy, a local aboriginal man, has barely a hut to live in and is mistreated by all of the caucasians he encounters, be they English, Irish, or otherwise. While Clare is a sympathetic character deserving of justice, she has no qualms at all in looking down upon the guide she hires to lead her through the wilderness. This is where The Nightingale first begins to wade into the subject of moral ambiguity, drawing increasingly blurry lines between the protagonists and antagonists of the film. This leads into the central plot, in which Clare tracks Hawkins and his subordinates through the Tasmanian wilderness in an effort to exact revenge.
#Tilt to live in cold blood series
Unfortunately, Hawkins’ favor for Clare extends itself into a nasty series of rapes and an outburst of horrific violence. An Irish prisoner sent to serve out her sentence in a barely settled colony, Clare seeks freedom from a British Lieutenant named Hawkins.
Set in Tasmania in the 19th century, The Nightingale is an unflinching nightmare of colonialism, imperialism, and the utter havoc they unleash on the people at their mercy. In desperate times and harrowing circumstances we are all at the mercy of our worst instincts, and it is with this heavy message that The Nightingale arrives. With that said, it has long been an illusion that they keep humans from behaving like beasts whenever it suits them. As far as humanity goes, they serve to distinguish us from the lower, more bestial forms of life.
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