Symbolism in Cloudstreet
Contribution to Meaning Symbolism
Mark: 18/20
The most direct way in which an author reinforces the themes of a novel is through the use of literary devices. In Cloudstreet by Tim Winton, one of the most prominent of these devices is symbolism, which plays upon the aesthetic sensibilities harboured by the text's audience and provides insight and deeper understanding to the themes of the novel. Indeed, Cloudstreet itself, the river and religious symbolism contribute to meaning and the author's endorsement of love, family, determination, and spirituality in the search for completeness.
The house Cloudstreet is deeply symbolic in Tim Winton's novel. It is the place where as the blurb suggests "for twenty years they roister and rankle, laugh and curse until that roof over their heads becomes a home for their hearts." Indeed, each aspect of the house develops its own personified characteristics from the fence "patched together from old signs" and the Lambs' rooms "like an old stroke survivor paralysed down one side". However, the library is the most significant room in symbolising the author's values and attitudes.
The library, situated in no-man's-land', is the darkest and most foreboding area of the house where Fish Lamb converses with ghosts of the evil' previous owner and an Aboriginal girl who died of self-administered poisoning. Early in the novel, the reader is taken "back in time" and introduced to the library with imagery such as
"The room soaked her up and the summer heat worked on her body until its surface was as hard and dry as the crust of a pavlova."
(pg. 36)
and Rose decides "no, it wasn't for books. The books could come in her room, and this room, well it could just stay closed" (pg. 40). The stolen generation' of Aboriginal children made to conform to the standards of white society are marginalised throughout the book, yet is a recurring issue that develops the library as a centerpoint for what some would name
Mark: 18/20
The most direct way in which an author reinforces the themes of a novel is through the use of literary devices. In Cloudstreet by Tim Winton, one of the most prominent of these devices is symbolism, which plays upon the aesthetic sensibilities harboured by the text's audience and provides insight and deeper understanding to the themes of the novel. Indeed, Cloudstreet itself, the river and religious symbolism contribute to meaning and the author's endorsement of love, family, determination, and spirituality in the search for completeness.
The house Cloudstreet is deeply symbolic in Tim Winton's novel. It is the place where as the blurb suggests "for twenty years they roister and rankle, laugh and curse until that roof over their heads becomes a home for their hearts." Indeed, each aspect of the house develops its own personified characteristics from the fence "patched together from old signs" and the Lambs' rooms "like an old stroke survivor paralysed down one side". However, the library is the most significant room in symbolising the author's values and attitudes.
The library, situated in no-man's-land', is the darkest and most foreboding area of the house where Fish Lamb converses with ghosts of the evil' previous owner and an Aboriginal girl who died of self-administered poisoning. Early in the novel, the reader is taken "back in time" and introduced to the library with imagery such as
"The room soaked her up and the summer heat worked on her body until its surface was as hard and dry as the crust of a pavlova."
(pg. 36)
and Rose decides "no, it wasn't for books. The books could come in her room, and this room, well it could just stay closed" (pg. 40). The stolen generation' of Aboriginal children made to conform to the standards of white society are marginalised throughout the book, yet is a recurring issue that develops the library as a centerpoint for what some would name