In the novel The Secret River written by Kate Grenville and the film One Night the Moon directed by Rachel Perkins, the two authors explore similar ideas and share similar structural features to communicate these concepts. The Secret River is set in the early 19th century and is about a young couple William and Sal Thornhill who lived in London and started from nothing. During their adventure William was sentenced to death and was exempted from his sentence, sent to Australia with his family where he built a life for them. One Night the Moon is a musical film set in the twentieth century in which issues of racism and land ownership are evident, similar themes to those explored in The Secret River. The novel The Secret River elaborates on themes such as cultural differences, racism and land ownership. Throughout the novel the main character William struggles with an internal battle to own a piece of land, and this pushes Thornhill until he gets the land he wants. This shares a similar structural feature to the film One Night the Moon in which Jim forbids the "Black Tracker" Albert from joining the search on his land for his missing daughter Emily, stating "there are no blacks in my land". Jim is ignorant and dismissive of Albert, caring too much about his "pride" rather than finding his daughter. In The Secret River racism also plays an important role in the plot, with Smasher Sullivan being one of the racist, narcissistic and vulgar characters in the entire novel. This is evident when it is explained that he held an Aboriginal woman captive in his hut as a sex slave and collected Aboriginal ears and wore them as a mark on his belt. Stylistic features such as figurative language are common in both Grenville and Perki... ... middle of the body of the card, after months of disappearance and Rose sings "I didn't want to know, I didn't want to see it." However, Grenville uses a lot of dialogue in his novel to express the different ideas and characteristics of his plot. This is evident when Kate uses descriptive stylistic features that symbolize “a handful of stars as meaningless as spilled rice” (p.4). This creates a vivid picture for readers of what Kate was trying to suggest about the "uncommon" stars in Australia. Both authors also use different perspectives in their text, which is another structural difference. In the novel The Secret River Grenville tells the story through William's perspective. His thoughts, feelings, and attitudes run through the reader's mind, giving him insight into how and why he commits the actions he does. Works Cited The Secret River A Moonlit Night