Summary, Character Analysis, Setting, Plot, and Themes of Neighbours by Tim Winton | Class 12 English

 

About the Author

Tim Winton (1960)

• He is an Australian author of both adult and children's novels that deal with both the experience of life and the landscape of his native country.
• He had won The Australian Literary Award for the best unpublished novel manuscript for An Open Swimmer in 1982.
• In 1997, he was named a Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia and had won the Miles Franklin Award four times.

Background of the story "Neighbours"

• This story is taken from the book Migrants of Australia. 
• It shows that having different cultures and languages does not stop from sharing love and compassion.
• It tells the story of a neighborhood where people of different cultures and languages live together.

Characters

Young Couple (Man and Woman): They are newly married and happily living together for some time. They are used to living in a suburb where people scarcely interact with each other, but their new neighbourhood is full of noisy people who rant, scream and talk as if they are murdering each other. 

Old Polish Widower: He is a widower from Poland who lives on the right of the young couple. He spends most of the day hammering nails in wood and then pulling them out. He keeps gathering timbers in his yard without reason. He builds the young couple's henhouse without any formal request. After the woman gets pregnant, he starts building two cars garage even though he does not have a car. 

The Macedonian Family: This family lives next door on the left of the young couple. Although how many members live in this family is not clearly specified in this story but most probably, there are more than three-the mother, father, and a little son- living together. They are noisy but helpful to the young couple.

The Greek Woman/Italian Woman/ The man in the deli/Midwife: They are the minor characters in this story. In the summer, the Italian woman offers names to the young woman as she is pregnant. The Greek woman stops her, feels her belly, and assures her that the baby is bound to be a boy. The man in the deli gives the young couple presents. And the midwife helps the young woman in her labour. Besides these characters, there are unnamed neighbours employed in the story significantly.

Setting:

This story is set in a commune somewhere inside Australia, where most of the residents are migrants.

Plot:

A young couple moves into a new neighborhood, but they were catious of the neighbors. They have experience of living in expansive suburbs where neighbours are seldom seen and never heard. But, this new neighborhood is something different.

A Macedonian family lives on the left side of their house, and a Polish widower lives on the right. The members of the Macedonian family shout, rant, and scream, whereas the Polish man spends most of the day hammering nails. He has stacked his yard with old timber planks.

The young man stays at home to write his thesis and his wife works in a hospital which the Macedonian family finds strange. In the autumn, the couple begins to plant vegetables in their backyard, and the neighbours offer their assistance which they find irritating. The young man and woman construct a henhouse, but it falls down. The Polish widower comes to their premise and constructs without any request. 

Gradually, they become a bit comfortable with their neighbours; however, the newcomers themselves irritated time and often. In the winter, they rear muscovies ducks, and in the spring, the Macedonian family teaches them how to kill the ducks.  

The young woman gets pregnant, and the man hurries to complete his thesis on the twentieth-century novel. The Polish widower begins to build a two-car garage, but the sound makes the young man annoyed. He cannot complain because of his kindness. The whole neighbourhood knows of the pregnancy, and they share tireless smiles. The neighbours start gifting them different presents, making the young woman feel flattered, claustrophobic, grateful and peeved. 

The woman goes into labour, but the whole neighbourhood waits all night while she struggles to give birth. They wish them well after she gives birth to a baby. The man feels his thesis has not made him understand the value of neighbours. 

Conclusion/Theme:

• The story illustrates how immigrants may make a positive contribution to Australia's social structure. Because of their strong feeling of belonging, the couple is able to see that intolerance, prejudice, and discrimination are all the result of a lack of information.
• The story shows how several people from different countries can live peacefully together despite having quite different lives.