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Conflict In Cloudstreet

Decent Essays

In the iconic Australian text, Cloudstreet, author Tim Winton portrays two vastly differing and struggling families; the Lambs and the Pickles, in the barren land of post war Perth forced, against their will, to live under the same roof at number 1 Cloud Street. Although each of the characters has diverging personalities, perspectives and issues throughout the text, they are more alike than it may seem at a surface level. Every one of the characters all struggle with their own personal adversities, but each one of them also seem to be fleeing from these issues rather than tackling them head on. Whether knowing or unknowing, each of Cloudstreet’s characters are all interconnected, walking “the same corridor time makes for us”. With the house …show more content…

As a result, the characters in the novel struggle to get by in the post war inflicted world, surviving on the bare necessities. From the get go it is apparent that each character arrives at Cloudstreet with their own ‘baggage’ and none of them are left unscathed from their past. A sense of suffering and grief is conveyed by each characters in the novel, with even the house itself expressing its confided pain. The house on Cloud Street seems to be a retreat for the characters, a way to flee from their problems; hoping that the house will mean a new start, free of the ties from the past. Yet the proves not to be thae case as even at this ne house, their problems still follow and the tenants choose to run from their past horrors, too scared to face their issues. In the case of Quick Lamb, he flees to Cloudstreet in hopes of overcoming his guilt about his younger brother’s (Fish) ‘drowning’. However even at this new house, it only worsens as he can no longer look into his brother’s eyes without seeing himself as a monster that almost killed rather than the good man he believes he is to be. Similarly Rose Pickles, like Quick, too is avoiding her issues, with severe anorexia and a horrendously fractured relationship with her family, in particular with her mother, Dolly. Much like Quick and the other characters, Rose too chooses to avoid her issues rather to combat them. This feeling of struggle and pain is a common …show more content…

The purposeful decision to use the house at number 1 Cloud Street to serve as a carrier for the journey means that each of the characters share an important aspect to their lives; “house and no money”. As members of the same household, so to speak, they all live under similar conditions and circumstances. Resulting from this, the characters also share many of the same experiences, meaning there is another similarity between the

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