Class 12 Compulsory English Literature Section Short stories Lesson 1

NEIGHBOUR

The short story neighbour is written by Tim Winton. His full name is Timothy John Winton. He is an Australian author. The story 'neighbour' is taken from Migrants of Australia edited by Harwood Lawler.

Neighbour is a story of newly married couple living in a multicultural and multilingual suburb neighborhoods. It shows that cultural and linguistic barries cannot stop people from bestowing love and compassion.

The main portagonist of the story is newly married couple. In the begining of the story the newly married young couple had migrants to a city of Australia. Their new home was small but high ceilings and paned window make it feel of 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. A big women with black eyes gave her a bagful of garlic cloves to plant. After sometimes, the young man and women tried to built sthe henhouse. But it fall down. The old polish widower who lived in a right of their house, rebuilt it without 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 the story of his wife about incompetence of the hospital. That made neigher feeled 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 young man ploughed on with his thesis. After some times they realized that the whole neighborhood 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 neighbor knitted the baby a suit. The neighbour take more care of them.

Now the couple come to realize the importance of neighbor. Then they drop the plan to complaining.

After sometimes the young women give birth to a baby. When the baby began to cry because of lost of nipple the young man came to the back door of Macedonian side, to see the face of 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.