About the author
Tim Winton whose full name is Timothy John Winton (born 4 August 1960) is an Australian writer. He has written novels, children's books, non-fiction books, and short stories for both children and adults. In 1997, he was named a Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia and has won the Miles Franklin Award four times. 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.
Summary
Neighbour is a story of a newly married couple living in multicultural and multilingual suburb neighborhoods. It shows that cultural and linguistic barriers cannot stop people from bestowing love and compassion.
The main protagonist of the story is a newly married couple. In the beginning of the story, the newly married young couple had migrants to a city in Australia. Their new home was small but high ceilings and paned windows make it feel like an elegant cottage. In the left of the house there lived a Mecedonain family and a widower from Poland in the right.
From the room, the young man can see the rooftops, used car yards the Moreton Bay figs in the park where they walked their dog.
The new couple seldom seen and never heard good neighbour there. They are always disturbed from the neighbour. Even they took 6 month to know that their neighbour are only talking not murdering each other. Their relation were uncomfortable for many days to the neighbour. The young man watched in disgust as the little boy next door urinated in the street.
In the autumn when the young couple planted leeks, onions, cabbage etc the neighbours come there to offer advice about spacing hilling and mulching. Big women with black eyes gave her a bagful of garlic cloves to plant. After some time, the young man and women tried to build the henhouse. But it fall down. The old polish widower who lived in a right of their house rebuilt it without an invitation for them in free. That time they couldn't understand a word he said.
When the winter arrived the young couple offered heads of cabbage to thier neighbour and took gifts of grandpa and firewood. The young man worked steadily on the thesis of the development of the twentieth century. He used to cook dinner and listen to the story of his wife about the incompetence of the hospital. That made neither felt ashamed.
But they hadn't planned on a pregnancy. They thought that they are being parents so early. The young woman take leave for maternity and the young man ploughed on with his thesis. After some time they realized that the whole neighbourhood knew of the pregnancy. Some of them gave her small presents of chocolate and him a packet of cigarettes. Italian women began to offer names. Greek woman touch the belly and said it is a boy. The next neighbour knitted the baby a suit. The neighbour takes more care of them.
Now the couple come to realize the importance of neighbour. Then they drop the plan to complain.
After sometimes the young women give birth to a baby. When the baby began to cry because of loss of nipple the young man came to the back door of the Macedonian side, to see the face of a baby. Then the young man realized the twentieth-century novel is half -meaning without adding this climax.
In this way, the story is ended. The writer want to show the co-operation and familiar behaviour of neighbour even they are vary on language, culture, nationality etc. The helpful behaviour of neighbour is shown. The newly marriage couple feeled them uncomfortable at first and slowly they have a habit of them and came to know the love affection of neighbour towards them. They realized that there is lots of connection of love help and memories even they don't know about each other's cultures.