Number one Cloudstreet Is More Than Just a House

NUMBER ONE CLOUDSTREET IS MORE THAN JUST A HOUSE

Number One Cloudstreet is the heart of Tim Winton’s novel “Cloudstreet,” bringing together both the Pickles and the Lambs and also representing a history of tragedy that is reflected in both these families. As the novel progresses, the house transcends its role of being an unwelcoming shelter to become a “great continent,” a place which they rely on not only for refuge but eventually for their community and livelihood as well. The personification of the house gives the reader a sense that it is a character itself, one that changes alongside the two families.

Winton uses the house as a visual metaphor of the character’s fluctuating lives over the course of the novel, much like the Lamb family, it is described by Winton to possess a “Godless opulence,” which not only displays the initial unwelcoming atmosphere of the house, but is also is a reference to the Lamb family and their somewhat “godless,” attitudes after Fish’s incident. The Pickles’ also experience “The big emptiness around of the house around them.” Initially, there is a sense of separation between the two families through “No man’s land,” which is the room in the middle of the house which divides the two families. This war imagery implemented by Winton shows that there is a degree of animosity between the two families. Though as the novel progresses and the families grow closer together, no man’s land is no longer seen as a split between the two. “Now they lived in the middle, in the old room they called No Man’s Land.” The opening of the Lamb’s shop in the house gives both a newfound sense of community within cloudstreet and signifies a change in the attitude and a new motivation in the Lamb family, which Winton refers to as “stickability.” The shop is seen to give its inhabitants a sense of identity. “After a time the shop was Cloudstreet, and people said it, Cloudstreet, in one word.” A major change which impacts both the house and its inhabitants is the birth or Rose and Quick’s daughter, Wax Harry. He is conceived in the library, which in that past has been a place haunted by the spirits of those who died in its history. There is an immediate change brought upon the library as a result of Quick and Rose’s display of love. “The bodyless shadows back off, mute and shaken in the face of passion.” During the actual birth of Wax Harry “The spirits on the wall are fading, fading, finally being forced on their way to oblivion.” This shows that the house is a representation of the characters healing.