care about it. Whether it is her mother or anyone, if she already has her own thought and decision, then she will keep hold it on.
3. Brave
One night Alice finishes trimming the lamps and takes them off to the dormitory. When Alice gets there, a girl is standing on the steps waiting for her.
She is b locking Alice‟s way. Alice asks her to get out of the road. She moves
aside, but when Alice walks into the room, she shaves Alice in the back. Alice does not take notice about that she just walks into the dormitory. But as Alice is
walking out, she stands in the doorway and says that Alice has been talking about
her, while actually Alice does not talk anything about her to anyone.
The girl says to Alice that Alice has been talking about her. Alice is surprised. The girl says
“what have you got to say about it now?”, but Alice does not know what the girl is talking about. The girl keeps asking Alice what Alice
says about her. Alice just tells the girl to get out of the way, but the girl hit Alice, and Alice hit her back.
But she wouldn‟t tell me, so I told her to get out of the way, and she hit me. So I up and hit her back, I gave her the works. She was a bigger
person than me, too, but I just lost my block Nannup, 1992:71-72.
When Alice‟s friend accuses her for doing nothing that she does not do, Alice is very brave defending herself. She defenses herself and says that it is not
her that does that. She remains calm and just walks away leaving her friend. She does not take notice about it, but because of that, her friend gets angry and hit
Alice, and Alice hit her back. If her friend does not hit her first, Alice also will not hit her. Alice just defenses herself.
Another acti on that shows Alice‟s bravery is when Miss Ryan wants to
wash her hair; she splits the water on the floor. She wants Alice to wipe it up, but Alice does not want. Miss Ryan says
“Alice, bring a cloth and wipe up this water
”. Alice asks “What water?”, Miss Ryan says the water in the passage which Alice just finished polishing. Alice wonders how there is the water there because
she already wipe it up. It is Miss Ryan who split the water because she wants to wash her hair. Alice does not want to wipe it. She asks Miss Ryan to wash it by
herself. Alice is that annoyed, she goes into Mrs Larsen and tells her what has just happened. Mrs Larsen calls out,
„Kathleen‟, and Miss Ryan comes in. Mrs Larsen says to her that if she has split the water on the floor then it is for her to wipe it up,
but Miss Ryan does not want to wipe it. She says Alice is the servant, so Alice should wipe it up, but Alice does not want.
„No,‟ she says, „she‟s the servant, she gets
to do it‟.„Well, I‟m not doing it,‟ I tell her Nannup, 1992:102-103.
Alice keeps standing in her opinion. If she thinks that she is right, she would keep standing in her way and defense herself. Alice thinks that Miss Ryan
split the water on purpose. She wants Alice to wipe it up for her, and Alice knows it too. That is why she refuses to wipe it. She is annoyed about it and she says she
does not want to wipe the floor. Just because she is a servant does not mean she has to do everything her boss asks her to do. Moreover it is something that her
boss does on purpose.
