Scatterheart is a 2007 Historical Fiction novel by Lilli Wilkinson. It's 1814 and Hannah Cheshire leads a privileged life in London, with fine clothes, servants and a handsome tutor. Then one day her father disappears and she is left to fend for herself. Not equipped for the real world she ends up penniless, and sentenced to transportation to the colonies for a crime she didn't commit...
Tropes found in this work:
- Animal Motifs: Thomas has bears, represented in the Scatterheart tale as a white polar bear.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted with Hannah. At the start of the story she is an immaculately-dressed, well-groomed lady of Quality. Over the course of the voyage, she becomes dirty, wears raggedy clothes, has her hair shaved off and loses a tooth thanks to being unable to properly clean them. Having said that, she's still implied to be attractive enough even after her hardships.
- Berserk Button:
- Threatening or mistreating women is a quick way to piss the usually gentle Thomas off.
- Hannah does not like Thomas's handkerchief being taken from her.
- Big Sister Instinct: Long Meg does initially steal Hannah's coat and hat, but after seeing Hannah is alone, scared and has no idea how to survive on her own, she takes pity on the girl and looks out for her on the ship. She also extends this to Molly, who is regarded as a "freak" by the sailors thanks to her burnt face.
- After an acrimonious start, Hannah becomes this to Molly.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: An unnamed woman who worked in the same factory as Thomas received a hundred-lashes on her bare back for swearing at an officer, then thrown in a hole in the ground full of seawater. She then passes out from the excruciating pain and drowns.
- Deadly Doctor: Dr. Ullathorne, who is nicknamed "Dr. Death" and Meg comments he has several diseases from sleeping with prostitutes. He's obsessed with trying to cure his own sickness and has a creepy fixation on Molly, believing if he can find something that works on her burns, he might be able to fix his own face, uncaring that Molly may die under such experiments.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: When Hannah is in New South Wales, a maid explains that she's a native to the town. When Hannah says she thought the natives were the Aborigines, the maid hurriedly clarifies she means she's "land born" (as in she was born there), but she's not one of the dirty savages who were there before the settlers.
- Double Standard: Long Meg warns Hannah to stop flirting with James and tells her it'll come to no good. Hannah retorts that Long Meg can hardly talk when she sleeps with sailors every other night, but Long Meg simply answers that it's not the same - it's a business transaction.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After all the trauma Hannah goes through on the ship and when she arrives in New South Wales she runs away with Molly to find Thomas, travelling east o' the sun, west o' the moon, and finally reunites with Thomas.
- Fatal Flaw: Long Meg never knows when to shut her mouth, even when she's pissing off authority figures who can and will hurt her.
- Gold Digger: Arthur Cheshire is strongly implied to have married Hannah's mother for her money, which he gambles away before the events of the book, abandoning his only daughter in the process.
- Had to Come to Prison to Be a Crook: Hannah is totally innocent when she's arrested for stealing, but thanks to her father's reputation, Molly pickpocketing her and Hannah collapsing from the flu during her trial, she's deported anyway. On the voyage to New South Wales, she becomes a murderer by pushing Dr. Ullathorne overboard after he kills Long Meg.
- Heroic BSoD: When Hannah arrives in New South Wales and hears that Thomas is dead, she almost completely loses her will to live and consents to marry James as his Trophy Wife. It's thanks to the arrival of Molly who tells her Thomas is alive that snaps her out of it.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Hannah at the start tends to believe all people of "Quality" like her are good, and those who aren't are bad. Her Character Development sees her grow out of this.
- Innocent Bigot: Hannah has classist views and mentions that she finds poor people dirty and unrefined. This is largely due to parroting her father's beliefs and time spent as a convict gives her a much better standing of those who grew up with nothing.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Arthur may be a philanderer and a lacklustre parent, but he does have a point about Thomas obviously having feelings for his fourteen-year-old daughter despite being a lowly tutor is rather inappropriate, though his objections are based on their differing social status than Hannah's age.
- The Nicknamer: Long Meg - she calls Hannah "Yer Ladyship", Dr.Ullathorne is "Dr.Death", and she's the one who decides to call Molly by that name.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Hannah, of all people, gets one:
- Hannah: I'm sorry, Meg. Sorry didn't do this sooner.
- Rule of Three: Thomas offers to run away with Hannah and care for her three times.
- Sanity Slippage: James gradually grows more and more obsessed with status over the course of the book, while Hannah comes to see what a terrible person he is.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: After killing an officer, Thomas retreats to the mountains and it's strongly implied he's suffering from PTSD when he's reunited with Hannah.
- Tragic Keepsake: The handkerchief Thomas leaves behind becomes Hannah's prized possession.
- Traumatic Haircut: Hannah gets her hair shorn off as punishment for attacking James. By the time they arrived in New South Wales, it's grown to at least past her ears.
- Yandere: James utterly flips out when Hannah repeatedly chooses Thomas over him, to the point of pulling a gun on her to make her come back with him.
