Cloudstreet Character Analysis

Australian writer, Tim Winton’s iconic novel ‘Cloudstreet’ chronicles the lives of two working class Australian families who come to live together in One Cloud Street, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia. Cloud street encompasses critical Australian themes of family relationships, finding values within the stimuli of life and through this finding your cultural identity and exploring themes of religion and spiritually. Winton has cleverly examined the historical background of our country to incorporate an accurate allegory of the Australian identity into the novel and its characters.

Throughout Cloudstreet, there are numerous concepts that portray the Australian cultural identity as Winton attempts to tell a story of the "typical Australian".
In Cloudstreet, Winton has effectively used the role of the woman and the man to express more modern attitudes and values of Australian life. Prime example of this are Lester and Oriel, the stereotypical man of the house, usually expected to go out, and work hard for money to support his family, and come home to his wife and kids, instead in Cloudstreet, he plays the complete opposite role. Lester is portrayed as a sensitive man who cooks and cleans regularly, whereas Oriel, his wife, has most of the control over the household and the one who wears the pants between both of them. Oriel is the compliment of Lester, as she has all the qualities you would expect to find in a man, she is strong, independent and determined, working hard to improve the family business. As it can be seen, Winton has effectively taken a step away from the traditional stereotypes of, "the man and woman of the house," and presented to readers the "typical Aussie household". Cloudstreet can also be observed from a feminist perspective which reveals the cultural context of women and the gender-based nature of Australian society in post World War 2 Perth. Australia was a male centred society as was much of the industrialised world and the value of women
The use of language in Cloudstreet allows the text to be interpreted from a historical perspective. The texts integrity is accentuated through the vernacular as it captures the spirit of Australia and criticises a modern society. This allows readers to identify significant developments in the