Timothy John Winton (Tim Winton)
SUMMARY
Full name of Tim Winton is Timothy John Winton. He was born on 4th August, 1960 in western Australia. He is an Australian writer. His writings often deals with his native country and the experience of life. In 1982, out of his 35 other novelist competants, the author was awarded with The Australian Literary Award for his creation An Open Swimmer. His other creations are That Eye, the Sky (1986), Dirt Music (2001), and Breath (2008). Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo (1990), The Bugalugs Bum Thief (1991) and The Deep (1998) are some of his populuar children’s books. This story is taken from Migrants of Australia later edited by Harwood Lawler.
It is a story about a newly married couple living in a multicultural and multilingual suburb neighbourhood. It shows that cultural and linguistic barriers cannot stop people from bestowing love and compassion.
Main characters (All Unnamed): an Australian young couple (Husband and Wife)
a Macedonian family, a noisy couple
a widower from Poland. A small boy. A strong (butcher) armed woman
In the story, a newly married couples have moved to a new place in which Euporean immigrants live. They used to live in expensive outer suburbs of Australia, before they moved to this new place.. The young man stays at home and he is accomplishing a thesis on the Development of the Twentieth Century Novel. The young lady is a health worker. She works in a hospital. The lady goes to her work and in the evening she shares her daylong experience to her husband. She says the condition of the hospital and the patients is not good at all. The young man stays at home and remains engaged in his thesis writing. He assists his wife in all the household chores. The neighbours think the young lady works outside and the young man stays at home doing nothing.
They are new to this place and the people living in their neighbourhood are different to one another because they are from different place. The new suburb has multicultural and multilingual people. They find it very difficult to fit themselves in their new society. They live in a small elegant cottage with a high ceiling in it. Their house is small because they are only two to live therein. The house has a small window from which they can see the roofs of other houses and a park to which the young man takes his dog for strolling.
Their nearest neighbour is a Macedonian family. They have the habit of talking loudly. The Macedonian family is a noisy family. The young couple feel uneasy living in that new place. The Macedonian family shout, scream but they are not quarelling or murdering to each other. The family create a lot of disturbance to the normal life of the young couple.
There is another person who lives near to the young couples’. He is a polish widower. He lives alone. He often found hammering and pulling out nails from a piece of wood. His actvities are not liked by the young couple at all. Later, the widower helped the young couple to repair the hen’s coop.
There is also a small boy. This boy’s head is frequently shaved hoping to get thicker hair on his head. He is small and seems mischievous and has the habit of urinating in the street. He sometimes urinates the cat’s back. It looks disgusting to the young couple.
In the beginning, the young couples feel strange living in a new society. They have difficulties to mix up with the new people. They have prejudices to their neighbours. But later, they start enjoying the company of thier neighbours. They come to know that each and every member in their society are important. In Autumn, when the young couple want to plant vegetables in the small yard of their house, the Macedonian family come to advice them how to plant vegetables. They tell them how to keep spacing, hilling and munching for plantation. Though they are noisy, they are helpful too. Despite of any request, the Macedonian family comes to help the young couple. In spring season, the Macedonian family teach them how to slaughter and to pluck and to dress a chicken. The big woman who has butcher’s arm gives a bag of garlic to plant in the young couples’ vegetable garden. It shows her benevolent behaviour towards other people.
They start to share their feelings and stories. The neighbours brings vegetables fruits to the young couple. They enjoy the neighbours. They are satisfied getting their neighbours. When the neighbours know about the pregnancy of the young lady, the neighbours become so happy. They help the young lady at her work. The neighbours offer gift and best wishes to the young couple. They make clothes for the unborn baby. They even think of a name to the baby. Everyone is willing to support and assist and everyone is courteous towards the young couple. When the young lady gives birth to a baby boy. The young couple become very happy. When the young man comes out of his house, he sees his cheerful and excited neighbours who are waiting for the good news. Looking at the cheerful faces of his neighbours, tears comes in the young man’s eyes. He remembers, what they felt about those neighbours in the past. He realizes that he had well prepared himself for his thesis but he had not prepared himself to identfy his neighbours attitude. He feels proud of his neighbours.
In the story, the author wants to present the young couple, along with other characters, as a role model therefore he has not given any proper names to his characters. The young couple represent the people who go to live in a new place, their perspectives and their attitude towards the new neighbours.
When we go to a new place everything is strange to us but with the passage of time we start to enjoy the people living there. In the story, the writer wants to show that the difference in culture, behaviour, language, religion etc cannot stop people loving each other. With the change of time, there is a change of thought and change in attitude is also shown in the story.
The story also demonstrates how immigrants may contribute to Australia’s social fabric. Their strong sense of community aids the couple in seeing that intolerance, prejudice and discrimination all comes from a lack of knowledge.
