Cloudstreet Essay

Tim Winton's "Cloudstreet" tells the story of two working-class families--the God-fearing Lambs and the feckless Pickles--who are forced to live in the same house. It explores the importance of family, spirituality and reconciliation. The novel begins with both families in disarray, with fragmented relationships. By the end, however, all conflicts are resolved, divisions are healed, and fragments become whole. Winton is able to influence his readers' understanding of people and society by demonstrating the value of unity. Cloudstreet is what gives you the sense of belonging, with the sense of hatred, love and fear. Put all these together and you create one happy family. Quote from Marieke Hardy ‘it is Australian – reading it felt like coming home’

The effect that the landscape has on the characters is very significant. Through the use of figurative language, Kent is able to covey the landscape and how it emphasizes many of the emotions felt by the characters. In the text characters live in Icelandic society where long distance communication is hard and fast communication is even harder. With the weather being the way it is; bitterly cold and oppressive, it reflects on each character and their emotions felt through the book. Particularly the oppressive snowfall throughout the text leaves the characters feeling claustrophobic and confined. In turn this allows each character to express these feelings in their own individual way. Margaret, the mother is trapped in her own house in a repetitive cycle of her own making. Agnes is caught in her own inner turmoil, and Margaret’s daughters are also trapped in a cycle, fated to live a

Suffering is centrepiece in Tim Winton’s modern Australian classic, Cloudstreet. The novel depicts characters who struggle to overcome their woes, with various approaches employed by characters so that they can endure their pain. Winton glorifies the characters able to surpass their struggles through reconciliation and love, describing them as “whole” and “human” beings who acknowledge that life is the one thing constant in our existence; something to be grateful for. Those unable to completely conquer their misery do not truly live although they may endure. These characters either are so focussed on battling against pain, they cannot resolve it at the source, or chose a path of self-ruin and are diminished to “shadows”, eventually

An epigraph is used to introduce themes and concerns. In the epigraph above the themes include angels (spirituality), gather (family) and river (water). The prologue constantly focuses on these three themes and they each have their own individual representations and meanings.

A theme throughout the movie that stood out to me was the contrast of child fantasy and reality. Suzy and Sam both suffer with dysfunctional and loveless relationships, Sam being an orphan, and Suzy struggling with feeling accepted in her family, and surrounded by parents that do not love each other. In order to escape their hardships, they turn to running away together. They form their idea of paradise in doing this, being able to disregard their family situations, and create a bond that they would have otherwise never had with anybody else before. I found the idea of the cove they run away together to, and the techniques Anderson combines with it, a very interesting concept. The cove is supposed to be a symbol of perfection and familiarity for the young lovers, but Anderson uses the impending storm to show that love, even in its purest form, is never flawless. I found this very intriguing, and thought-provoking since a lot of people do describe love as perfect, and that being in love is the best time of your life. I noticed, in order to emphasise his point, Anderson used dark clouds and grey skies while they were on their “paradise” island, whereas typical romance movies would have bright blue, sunshine filled

Tim Winton’s funny and sprawling saga, Cloudstreet is an Australian classic novel which shows a tightly structured narrative that charts twenty years of cohabitation of two contrasting working class families, the Pickles and the Lambs, thrown together in misfortune to live under one roof in No.1 Cloudstreet. Winton paints a nostalgic picture of Australia’s post-war past, evokes a time and place that no longer exists. Winton’s characters are a “restless mob” who individually are finding one’s place in the world or in society and each are searching for the meaning of life. We learn about Fish’s and Rose’s characters through a flexible, shifting narrative (cyclical) structure and omniscient point-of-view that gives us access to their thoughts and feelings.

Lady Cloud feels hurt to see her husband still not see her as his belove wife after a century has passed his heart and his eyes longing for the Demon to come back to him.

The play focuses on two working families who share a house at Cloudstreet, in Perth, Western Australia. The two families lived at Cloudstreet for twenty years, from 1943 to 1963.

He starts feeling hopeless and this is the beginning of his search for meaning. “Luck doesn’t change, love. It moves” (pg 20) Lester says this to Rose at the hospital after his accident. We are instantly introduced to a dominant theme that surfaces throughout the entire novel: luck.

Cloudstreet is a mystical hymn of each character’s journey to finding peace and redemption within their lives. From separate tragedies, the Pickleses and the Lambs come to Cloudstreet seeking a fresh start. Winton’s exploration of a mystical journey to redemption is represented through the complex relationship between Fish and Quick Lamb. Their relationship is ridden with guilt, despair, a sense of mystical hope and a fervent desire for freedom, ideas that are widely important for the maintenance of human hope.

Rose was born into a rich family, so she to have a education. Most kids her age didn’t have a good eduction or didn’t have an education

Though in a childish way, when Ophelia runs into the labyrinth and chooses to rebel when the faun tells her to hand over her brother, she ends up dying. Just as how Mercedes chooses to risk her life by rebelling against the Captain. Both acts of rebellion symbolize how sacrifice is necessary for the betterment of future generations both in the movie and during the Civil

She represents many of the stages of grief while attempting to find a way to revenge her husband’s, Osiris, death. Grief is an unavoidable process every human mind

Additionally, she is told what to do by these elderly ladies, this proceeds in only confusing her further for the reason that she can’t comprehend why these ladies who are so much older than her have gained the authority to restrict her actions. Overall she is terrified, but her domineering emotions are lost along with confused. “The night they left me in this private institution on a hill.” (First Stanza Line 8-9) In this line we learn that the woman from the poem is cast aside and left in a Mental Institution presumably from the tragedy she faces, although it is not explicitly told to us, she is in the institution as a result of a tragedy we can infer this information from line 2 in the first stanza. “They turned out the light.” What we can take from this line is that she is talking about a group of people who ‘turned out the light’ we can postulate that this a tragedy she is describing. With the use of imagery in this line, she takes us back to the day she was brought to the Mental Institution, making this line a very effective method of disclosing her pain. From this line, we finally understand that there is a group of people who are the cause of a tragedy. When she finds out about said tragedy, she becomes so distraught she is driven to the brink of madness ‘they’ decide it fit that she is driven to a Mental Institution where she is left. Comparatively, In Ophelia’s case, we find out that her father has died and that she hasn’t

She was not able to mentally or emotionally maintain herself with such tragedy and loss in her life. Her conflict goes hand in hand with the play as it revolves around death and