Meaning Of Life In Tim Winton's Cloudstreet

James Moloney’s “A Bridge to Wiseman’s Cove”, uses varying family circumstances and community expectations to express how these things effect an individual. The novel displays character foils that even further explores this idea, as the protagonist interacts with these foils and situations, resulting in development of his ability to voice himself. Fluctuating amounts of dialogue and distinct characterisation of key and minor characters further explores this idea.

Despite an expanded outlook on the world, Luke and Anna find themselves in a place of vertigo as they struggle to come to terms with the harsh world that is Garra Nulla. The metaphor “some days she feels like a fly caught in an invisible web” establishes a visual of one who is confined by their negative experiences, unable to escape, whereas the description of “an invisible web” depicts an image of an unexpected challenge that has impacted on Anna’s initially idealistic view of country living. However, despite the couple’s dislocation and the destructive yet regenerative bushfires an overall feeling of hope at the end of the novella is reassuring. Lohrey delineates this through the symbolisation of the black swans at the closing stage of the novella. “Look”, she says, “the swans are back.” Representing a return to normality in their world as the re-emergence of the swans metaphorically represents the return of hope. The omniscient narrator reveals Anna’s inner dialogue “Ah, she says so you are leaving us. So you are on your way at last. But it’s okay, it’s alright; yes, she thinks, I am ready for this…” displaying that they are finally able to attain comfort over the grief of losing their son. Despite Anna’s and Luke’s negative experiences, the responder attains a feeling of reassurance as through the distinctive images created we observe a return to normality and ultimately a positive feeling of

A part of the world around him, the opinions of others is a vital means by which Hall introduces the fisherman. Immediately present in “The Ledge” is the fisherman’s relationship with his wife, “She did not want him to go. It was Christmas morning.” (369). The wife’s reluctance to see her husband leave is indicative of their relationship and the caring man that the fisherman is— she wants Christmas, a day of joy and love, to be

How each character’s relationship relates to native Australians grows for better or worse throughout the novel. The novel also shows how Grenville has incorporated each personal lifestyle and how it co-exists with the other. The novel incorporates past and modern views about each society and brings to attention controversial issues about Australia’s convict past and how Aborigines are being ostracized for their way of life and skin pigmentation.

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

Rather than name this young boy and immediately create barriers between the character and the reader, Crabtree purposefully leaves the boy as an ambiguous figure to represent any person. “The pond was a book of life with the boy as the learner,” the author states (Crabtree 72). While the pond, in this instance, represents all that is encompassed in life, the boy is seen as the object that is being taught. The young boy constantly goes to the pond alone, just as life is lived alone. He experiences many things on his solemn adventures to the pond. The journey made daily to the pond portrays everyday life as a choice, the boy chooses to enjoy and experience all that nature has to offer while others, such as his parents, choose to stay back and view life from a distance rather than experience it to the full.

When a young author from New York City decides to take a trip to the southern city of Savannah, he finds himself falling in love with the town and ends up renting an apartment. He encounters many different characters, including Danny Hansford and Jim Williams, that gives the reader a good look into the aura of Savannah. The main conflict in the book occurs when a murder happens in an old mansion located in the town. The book follows the progression of the trial and the outcome following the court’s decision.

In the short story “Sea Oak,” George Saunders presents a family that is struggling with life in the poor neighborhood of Sea Oak. The narrator works as a male stripper in Joysticks, run by Mr. Frendt. The story also revolves around Auntie Bernie, who dies, resurrects, and dies again after advising the narrator, his sister Min, and their cousin Jade to adopt unorthodox and immoral means of making it in life. Two main themes that emerge in Saunders’ work are grief and loss that people suffer in life, and how the society teaches to deal with them, including the loss of a fruitful life, lack of wealth and success, as well as death.

There is strong symbolism throughout Cloud Street that parallels this idea of segregation. The end of the novel signifies the overcoming of these symbols, in order to unite. The divided backyard is achieved through "old signs patched together," symbolizing the patching together' of lives after the previous hardships faced. The families of Cloudstreet are very different, one who

Eleanor, the protagonist, undergoes a difficult childhood which cause many of her repressed feelings to be expressed through supernatural experiences that are ambiguous. She took care of her ill mother for 11 years, until she died. That affected her tremendously. For example, during Theodora’s supernatural experience, Shirley Jackson displays how Eleanor’s inner child managed to let her grow anger and jealously towards Theodora. Eleanor felt like Hill House was giving Theodora more

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.

In conjunction with the symbolic representation of Elisa’s life, the dramatic description of the environment can also be seen as a unique representation of the relationship conflict between husband and wife. Steinbeck’s foggy description demonstrates conflict through the following statement, "a time of quiet and waiting." This description is interesting because the fields are personified as waiting for rain, however, “rain and fog do not go together” therein lies the conflict just as Elisa waits for a positive change in how her husband treats her (Palmerino, Gregory J). Gregory P. further points out that, “The natural elements of the foothills ranch seem as unwilling to confront each other as the characters that inhabit its environs. Hence, fog and rain can be seen as the female and male equivalents to Elisa and Henry.” This only further solidifies the deep rooted troubles within Elisa and her relationship with her husband. The setting of the story is personified to act as a symbolic representation of the couple’s relationship (Steinbeck, John 337-338).

The novel develops a series of key symbols as compositional devices that develop character and expand on the deeper moral issues underlying the text. The children at Hailsham are afraid of the woods which represent the outside world. A world they will never fully understand or occupy. A horrible school story includes a boy’s body with his ‘hands and feet chopped off’ (p.50). This foreshadows the clones being dissected for organ parts. Fences represent confinement both at school and at the end of the novel at Norfolk, where Kathy goes to where she has to go. The ‘beached boat’ (p.220) represents their lack of options; they confront their own deaths briefly in discussing Chrissie recent death and Ruth reinforces being donors is what they are

Due to the vivid descriptions of the rabbits’ homeland, the characters’ personal moments in which they think about their home that they lost, such as “for the first time, Hazel began to realize how much they had left behind” (Chapter 12), reside with the reader on a deeper level. Because the reader was able to visualize and understand the rabbits’ home and their connection to it, events that proved troublesome for the main characters had much more meaning behind them. The reader is also able to draw the effects that humanity has upon the homes of these characters, and other wildlife that may live in an area that has been interfered with by man. The actions that humans obliviously and selfishly take have detrimental effects on the narrative’s heroes, such as in Chapter 25, when Hazel attempted to free the does from the farm and was consequently shot. The humans’ invasion of the territory of the wildlife of Watership Down harms the environment and characters that the reader has formed a connection with, and prompts the reader to ponder the real life consequences of humanity’s actions. Ultimately, Adams’ vivid recreation of the downs he inhabited as a child allow for deeper understanding and connection for the reader, however, the setting of the novel also holds greater symbolic meaning.