Plot
Why does John Grant feel disgruntled?
Wake in Fright
John Grant is a middle-class teacher from the big city. He feels disgruntled because of the onerous terms of a financial bond which he signed with the government in return for receiving a tertiary education. The bond has forced him to accept a post to the tiny school at Tiboonda, a remote township in the arid Australian Outback. It is the start of the Christmas school holidays and Grant plans on going to Sydney to visit his girlfriend but first, however, he must travel by train to the nearby mining town of Bundanyabba (known as “The Yabba”) in order to catch a Sydney-bound flight. At "The Yabba", Grant encounters several disconcerting residents including a policeman, Jock Crawford, who encourages Grant to drink repeated glasses of beer before introducing him to the local obsession with the gambling game of two-up. Hoping to win enough money to pay off his bond and escape his "slavery" as an outback teacher, Grant at first has a winning streak playing two-up but then loses all his cash. Unable now to leave "The Yabba", Grant finds himself dependent on the charity of bullying strangers while being drawn into the crude and hard-drinking lifestyle of the town's residents. Grant reluctantly goes drinking with a resident named Tim Hynes (Al Thomas) and goes to Tim's house. Here he meets Tim's daughter, Janette. While he and Janette talk, several men who have gathered at the house for a drinking session question Grant's masculinity, asking: “What's the matter with him? He'd rather talk to a woman than drink beer.” Janette then tries to initiate an awkward sexual episode with Grant, who vomits. Grant finds refuge of a sort, staying at the shack of an alcoholic medical practitioner known as "Doc" Tydon. Doc tells him that he and many others have had sex with Janette. He also gives Grant pills from his medical kit, ostensibly to cure Grant's hangover. Later, a drunk Grant participates in a barbaric kangaroo hunt with Doc and Doc's friends Dick and Joe. The hunt culminates in Grant clumsily stabbing a wounded kangaroo to death, followed by a pointless drunken brawl between Dick and Joe and the vandalizing of a bush pub. At night's end, Grant returns to Doc's shack, where Doc apparently initiates a homosexual encounter between the two. A repulsed Grant leaves the next morning and walks across the desert. He tries to hitch-hike to Sydney, but accidentally boards a truck that takes him straight back to "The Yabba". He contemplates shooting Doc, but instead attempts suicide. Grant recovers in hospital from his suicide attempt and Doc sees him off at "The Yabba's" rail station. He returns to Tiboonda for the new school year.