Neighbours
- Tim Winton
Understanding the text
Answer the following questions.
a.
Describe how the young couple’s house looked like.
The young couple's house was small, but its high ceilings and paned windows gave it the
feel of an elegant cottage. From his study window, the young man could see out over
the rooftops and used car yards the Moreton Bay figs in the park where they walked
their dog
b.
How did the young couple identify their neighbors in the beginning of their
arrival?
The young couple identified their neighbours were different from the rich suburban neighbours. They were not as good as suburban because they were noisy. The young man and woman had lived all their lives in the expansive outer suburbs
where good neighbours were seldom seen and never heard. The sounds of spitting and
washing and daybreak watering came as a shock. The Macedonian family shouted,
ranted, screamed. It took six months for the newcomers to comprehend the fact that
their neighbours were not murdering each other, merely talking.
c.
How did the neighbours help the young couple in the kitchen garden?
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 neighbours. They planted
leeks, onions, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and broad beans and this caused the neighbours
to come to the fence and offer advice about spacing, hilling, mulching. The young man
resented the interference, but he took careful note of what was said. His wife was bold
enough to run a hand over the child's stubble and the big woman with black eyes and
butcher's arms gave her a bagful of garlic cloves to plant.
d.
Why were the people in the neighborhood surprised at the role of the young man
and his wife in their family?
The Macedonians raised eyebrows at the late hour at which the newcomers rose in the mornings. The young man sensed their disapproval at his staying home to write his thesis while his wife worked.
e.
How did the neighbours respond to the woman’s pregnancy?
People smiled tirelessly at them. The man in the deli gave her small presents
of chocolates and him packets of cigarettes that he stored at home, not being a smoker.
In the summer, Italian women began to offer names. Greek women stopped the young
woman in the street, pulled her skirt up and felt her belly, telling her it was bound to be
a boy. By late summer the woman next door had knitted the baby a suit, complete with
booties and beanie. The young woman felt flattered, claustrophobic, grateful, peeved.
f.
Why did the young man begin to weep at the end of the story?
The young man heard shouting outside. He went to the back door. On the Macedonian side of the
fence, a small queue of bleary faces looked up, cheering, and the young man began to
weep. The twentieth-century novel had not prepared him for this and he got so emotional to everyone cheering the birth of his baby. So he began to weep at the end of the story.
g.
Why do you think the author did not characterize the persons in the story with
proper names?
I think the author did not characterize the persons in the story with proper names because he wants to bring the common case of immigrants to a new place. They get exposed to multi-culture and language. Yet they can get along. 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 peoplefrom bestowing love and compassion.
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