“Don’t be bitter, be better” (Minimum of Two)
It excited him to discover how quiet he was inside. P93
Tim Winton has always looked like this. Relaxed, down to earth. He never
really fitted the expectations of a writer: he was from a working class
family; the first to get an education. He grew up around the sea, nearly
drowned. His father was a police officer, his grandmother lived in a tent,
his grandfather was a performer on vaudeville like Lester.
I like Winton because his characters are kind of Australian and he sort of
shows that there is more to us than meets the eye … a bit like the house
on Cloudstreet.
The book is nostalgic: it is remembering a time, in some ways yearning for
it, but also letting it go, which is what many of the characters need to do.
I remember walking around in the streets of the City of Perth and being appalled. What
I hadn't realized before was how much of the city had been destroyed in the orgies of development in the 1960s
and 1980s. The places I grew up with...had simply become mythic because the bulldozers had got to them and
those shiny reflective shit boxes had been put up in their place...I was re-imagining it...the city of your parents,
the city of your grandparents...
It sent me off...thinking about the destruction of community, the destruction of neighbourhoods...the loss of the
corner shop, all the kinds of things that people get nostalgic about for good reason...Plus I was documenting
all the verbal history and the nonsense and the tall stories I'd grown up with...listening to all these people
talking in accents and inflections that had become pressed out of reality, out of existence by the
Americanisation of our culture.
Winton doesn’t like everything about modernity and certainly picks up on
this when he writes about Perth and the sinister aspects of the Swan river.
He seems to be observing a place in the process of transformation and also the people in that place.
While Winton knows that you can’t “live in the past”, there are things that it can teach us. It has value and for many of his
characters it resonates throughout their lives. As you know, different characters including the house at Cloudstreet, are
haunted.
Nonetheless, I think Winton appreciates the optimism (Sam/ Lester), sense of community (Oriel/Lester, Cloudstreet),
resolve/determination (Oriel) that seems to be present.
“New” Australia : past versus present past and present
Rose …. “didn’t care or know much about politics; she just hated Australians who tried to be
English”
Rose and Toby can’t work because he is too pretentious and aspiring to be something that is
not natural to the place. Despite aspiring to be like him in terms of class/status/education,
she sees through him.
Novel is finding/creating it’s own unique voice, style. Making sense of it’s own experiences.
Australia is acknowledging/creating it’s own story: both the ugly bits and the triumphant bits
This reinforces the uniqueness of the experience.
The book was published/written around Australia’s bi centennial and Winton is very aware
of the positive and negative parts of our history.
He is much more aware than people like Sam about aboriginal displacement and is
endorsing the idea that we need to respect, understand and protect the spirit of a place as
did the aboriginals.
Perhaps the challenge is to get the “mix / blend” right : Quick and Rose are honest/openly vulnerable and
supportive juxtaposing the older couples who are rarely intimate about their fears/failings.
For Winton, it seems the secrets people (or places) keep haunt them or
hold them back.
Continuity / Resilience / Family / Support / Empathy = hope for Winton
as people/places “heal” when they acknowledge the pain of the past.
Key Themes:
Death
Loss
Family
Empathy
Resilience
Struggle
Change
Identity
Problems faced:
Loss of loved ones
Loss of self
Family breakdown/dysfunction
Loss of faith/identity
Financial hardship
A lot of sad people on the wall, Quick. What’re you doin with em?
What’s it mean?“
Quick said nothing.
Knocks me around to see you like this boy. You’ll starve to death. Look
at these poor sods – you don’t wanna be like them. You don’t need to be.
You’ve got a roof over yer head, family – well we’re not much I know, he
chuckled. (P93)
Lester then cracks it a little at Quick :
And then the old man’s voice got quiet and dangerous. You and me we
understand about Fish. We were there. We were stupid enough to drown
him tryin to save him. You remember that. We owe him things, Quick.
We got a debt …. Don’t you forget about Fish, boy. Not as long as you
live, or your life won’t have been worth livin’. (93-94)
In this passage, there are several things worth noting that set up a sense of what Cloudstreet is about.
Dialogue/use of slang = Australian.
Winton locates the piece in a particular place and time: references to places, products and mindsets that
don’t exist anymore abound
Family: Lester is trying to help Quick see what he has, how fortunate he is …. This is also a little ironic as the
Lambs have struggled with the loss of Fish, the loss of Faith and the loss of place/home.
Goodwill: Lester “chuckles”, tries to always keep things positive, honest and straightforward. He is
immensely frustrated but there is goodwill in his nature.
Guilt/Change/Loyalty: Reminding Quick of his debt to Fish, the importance of kinship and support.
It’s interesting that the line reminds Quick not to live a life of regret, to live fully as we will discover that the
narrator, Fish recalls all there is to lament and celebrate about life just moments before he dies.
But in a sense, when Fish flings himself into the water, his death also functions as a rebirth and a reunion
with himself: he is whole again, articulate, engaged and conscious of everything.
Perhaps in this way Winton introduces the idea of continuity.
Style
-
Mostly 3rd person/Fish goes to 1st person
Magical realism- some strange unexpected/unbelievable events occur
Colloquial language
Symbolism: water
Biblical references
Set in an Australia that is emerging and is in the process of “becoming” / changing much like
many of the characters, particularly Rose and Quick who are rising/emerging / developing
from the narrative as connected, mindful, sensitive and strong despite the pains they have
endured.
In both life and death, novel celebrates the interconnection of beings. Water seems a chief
symbol : both families have it in common, live close to it and are sometimes out of their
depth.
Rose: hardy, thorny, tough, beautiful
metaphorically abandoned/ignored/rejected by mother. Scarred by past. Struggles with
anorexia. Dolly’s promiscuity leads to Rose’s loss of innocence when she hears her having
sex on the day of Sam’s accident.
Quick conscience/new perspective/different outlook on Nedlands monster. Irony : not as
“slow” as people think …
That’s the sight of the world ending, someone’s son dead. Then it
hits him. That’s my brother. This is my life over again
Fish: Lost yet “present”. Articulates the feelings. Understands even though he cannot
communicate.
Lester and Oriel: Grieving/resilient/supportive. Lost their meaning/lost Fish and God at same
time. Lester seems to be the emotional glue, Oriel the drive and energy of house and
neighbourhood: maybe masking her grief. Lost her “mind country”.
Hard woman but generous to lots of people. Winton perhaps celebrates her uniqueness.
Maybe Rose represents an evolved version of Oriel?
Sam: unlucky, handicapped, larrikin, joker, well meaning but foolish. Funny: bird is a crack
up.
Lester understands him immediately. (Great quote when they meet for the first time:
“Lester sees the pink stumps and reads grief in the man’s face. He knows what it looks like.
He only needs a mirror” p49)
Dolly: sexualised, alcoholic, victim of abuse. Has dreamt of getting away : rail road tracks =
escape, but she is trapped by her past. ( No, she never did find out about those rails. But
nothing ever turns out like you expect. Like how your father ends up not being your father,
and all.” P79)
Inverse of saying “Only a mother could love you”- very hard to connect with, but loss of her
son and discovery of her secret slowly changes our perception.
Wants to reinvent herself for grandson (Wax Harry) – family is both her undoing and her
‘saviour’
Wax Harry: new generation/ product of the 2 families/ the new centre and focal point.
Cloudstreet: bad vibe, divided but transforms spiritually when it is filled with love. The scene
when Quick and Rose in the library literally shakes the spirits away and their ‘sudden love
remains in the room, hanging like incense’ (p314)
Becomes a new centre and hub.
Ultimately triumphant place.
For Winton, families are not perfect and they can, in fact, do amazing damage. Nonetheless,
it is not always bad and they can and do provide the instances that make life worthwhile
and wonderful and you just can’t ignore these moments.
“Quick thought about it. They lived like some newspaper cartoon – yokels,
bumpkins, fruitcakes in their passed down mended up clothes, ordered like an
army floorshow. They worked their bums off and took life seriously: there was
good and bad, punishment and reward and the isolation of queerness. But
there was love too, and always there was music and dancing and jokes, even
in the miserable times after Fish drowned.” (p304)
Stuff to do:
In presenting …. as ….
Winton juxtaposes ……. with ……… in order to ………….
Winton’s use/reference to ….. is also a symbol for ……..
Find Examples:
The house in Cloudstreet
Family/individual pain
What a main character may have in common
What motivates characters
Evidence of transformation
How the couples are similar/different
The moments of joy/connection
Topics (from web)
“In Cloudstreet, Winton shows that the effects of grief are rarely short-lived or easy to resolve.”
Do you agree?
_______________________________________________________________
Human beings often struggle to make meaning of their lives. Discuss the development of this
idea in Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet
_______________________________________________________________
"Cloudstreet dwells on the human desire to find meaning in life." Discuss 
_______________________________________________________________
"Cloudstreet by Tim Winton explores the relationship between family and identity."
_______________________________________________________________
"How is cultural identity represented in Tim Winton's Cloudstreet?"
_______________________________________________________________
"In Cloudstreet tragedy and loss are overcome by hope and forgiveness." Discuss
_______________________________________________________________
"Cloudstreet is very Australian but has a universal significance. Do you agree?
_______________________________________________________________
"The values portrayed in Cloudstreet are very endearing because they no longer exist." Do you
agree?
_______________________________________________________________
"Rose and Quick's wedding is an important event in Cloudstreet. How does Tim Winton use it to
reflect some key concerns in the text?
_______________________________________________________________
"Cloudstreet shows that the supernatural is a normal, every day experience that enables us to
find out who we are and where we belong." Discuss
_______________________________________________________________
"Cloudstreet is as much an historical text as it is spiritual." Discuss
_______________________________________________________________
"Ultimately in Cloudstreet, it is the representation of intense human relationships that captivates
the reader." Discuss
_______________________________________________________________
"Besides providing an interesting story line, texts portray attitudes and values connected with
many aspects of the society in which they were written or represent." Discuss in relation to
Cloudstreet.
_______________________________________________________________
“Go on with your life, love. It’s all there is.” Cloudstreet depicts characters who continue to live
in the face of suffering that threatens to engulf them. Discuss.
_______________________________________________________________
“In Cloudstreet, Winton shows that the effects of grief are rarely short-lived or easy to resolve.”
Do you agree?
_______________________________________________________________
“The world was a sad, miserable place and soon it’d be no place at all.” Cloudstreet
contains characters who revel in their own suffering. Discuss.
______________________________________________________________
‘In Cloudstreet tragedy and grief are overcome by hope and
forgiveness.’ Discuss.
______________________________________________________________
‘Cloudstreet is very Australian but has universal significance.’ Discuss.
______________________________________________________________
‘In Cloudstreet Winton demonstrates that there is no single religious
path to enlightenment, but many possibilities for achieving this goal.’
Discuss.
______________________________________________________________
‘The two families of Cloudstreet live out microcosmic versions of the
potential for harmony in the wider world.’ Discuss.
______________________________________________________________
‘Cloudstreet is an allegory or morality tale. It is not meant to be read
literally.’ Discuss.
______________________________________________________________
‘In Cloudstreet all the ends are tied up too neatly to be realistic.’
Discuss.
______________________________________________________________
‘The significance of a dimension beyond the everyday, temporal one
is a central tenet of Cloudstreet.’ Discuss.
______________________________________________________________
‘Cloudstreet demonstrates the potential for breaking patterns of
destruction.’ Discuss.
______________________________________________________________
‘Cloudstreet illustrates the role of culture in making people feel
psychologically and emotionally at home’ Discuss.