Neighbours by Tim Winton (Summary and Analysis)- NEB Grade 12 (New Course) English
About Author
Tim Winton, full name Timothy John Winton, (b. 1960) is an Australian author of both adult and children’s novels that deal with both the experience of life in and the landscape of his native country. He competed with 35 other novelists for The Australian Literary Award presented for the best-unpublished novel manuscript and won the prize in 1982 for his manuscript An Open Swimmer. His novels include That Eye, the Sky (1986), Dirt Music (2001), and Breath (2008). He also wrote several children’s books, including Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo (1990), The Bugalugs Bum Thief (1991), and The Deep (1998). This story ‘Neighbours’ has been taken from Migrants of Australia edited by Harwood Lawler.
It is a story about a newly married couple living in a multicultural and multilingual suburb neighborhood. It shows that cultural and linguistic barriers cannot stop people from bestowing love and compassion.
Characters
A young couple
Mecodenian family
A Polish Widower
Italian family
Main Points from the Text
- When they first moved in, the young couple were wary of the neighborhood. The street was full of European migrants.
- Next door on the left lived a Macedonian family. On the right, a widower from Poland.
- The Macedonian family shouted, ranted, screamed. It took six months for the newcomers to comprehend the fact that their neighbors were not murdering each other, merely talking.
- The old Polish man spent most of his day hammering nails into wood only to pull them out again.
- The young man sensed their disapproval at his staying home to write his thesis while his wife worked.
- In the autumn, the young couple cleared rubbish from their backyard and turned and manured the soil under the open and measured gaze of the neighbors.
- Not long after, the young man and woman built a henhouse. The neighbors watched it fall down. The Polish widower slid through the fence uninvited and rebuilt it for them.
- The young man worked steadily at his thesis on the development of the twentieth-century novel.
- In the spring the Macedonian family showed them how to slaughter and to pluck and dress.
- Before long the young couple realized that the whole neighborhood knew of the pregnancy. People smiled tirelessly at them. The man in the deli gave her small presents of chocolates and packets of cigarettes that he stored at home, not being a smoker. In the summer, Italian women began to offer names.
- As the night deepened, the young woman dozed between contractions, sometimes walking, sometimes shouting. The night grew older. The midwife crooned. The young man rubbed his wife's back. And then came the pushing. He caressed and stared and tried not to shout.
- After the childbirth, on the Macedonian side of the fence, a small queue of bleary faces looked up, cheering, and the young man began to weep.
Summary and Analysis of Neighbours by Tim Winton
The short story “Neighbours”, written by Tim Winton, deals with a young couple who has moved to a new town where a lot of European immigrants live. They were quite uneasy with the new place and the surroundings initially.
The couple sees the strange and sometimes disgusting customs of their new neighborhood. On the right, a Macedonian family was yelling and a Polish widower was pounding nails into the woods. It was quite an odd idea for the Macedonian family that the young man stays at home to write a thesis, where his wife goes to work. So both the young couple and their neighbors have prejudices, but as time passes, they become used to their new environment and the young couple begins adoring their neighbors and notice that they aren’t that bad at all. Even the Polish helped the young couple to rebuild the henhouse.
The neighbors started to share labors. In autumn when the couple started planting, the Mecidonian family offered assistance. Later in winter, the couple supported the family. They exchanged smiles. Likewise, it became fruitful for the couple, whom the Macedonian family taught how to slaughter in spring. It was the time when they revealed that the woman was pregnant.
Without sharing the news, the neighbors got to know about the pregnancy of the woman. They surprised them with gifts and wishes. Finally, the couple got their baby and the entire neighborhood celebrated it with full of excitement. It was an incredible moment for the young couple. They find out that they can be friends and that they can help each other in their everyday lives so that everybody is satisfied with their neighborhood and their life.
The story "Neighbours" ends with a realization of the man who had been having prejudices towards his neighbors, who turned out to be very supportive. He felt that the real environment taught more than his thesis writing, which had not prepared him well in the real life.
In the story, all the characters are unnamed and not defined. However, they bring specific features of helping others in need, which can be regarded as role models for everyone. The polite behaviors of the neighbors and willingness to help make the story's ending remarkable.
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