Spirituality In John Winton's

1294 Words6 Pages
I have personally come to the understanding that it is Winton’s exploration of the sense that spiritual fulfilment can be found in place, home, and family which will continue to make it worthy of critical study. Through his malleable, and diverse use of language, contrasting Australian colloquialism with poetic beauty Winton explores spirituality in a way both unique to Australia and universal to all human beings, ensuring its continued relevance in a variety of times and contexts. He explores these ideas through structure, language, multiple narrative voices, characterisation, and Magic realism. Truly Winton’s is a novel with many layers, and for me, above anything else, the universal concept of spiritual fulfilment explored in conjunction…show more content…
Winton explores the effect Fish’s drowning has on Oriel’s spirit, who, clearly characterised by the trait of ‘stickability’ and hard work, uses this as a way of covering up her inner turmoil. The Lambs reject god when Fish is brain damaged, and they alienate god and spirituality. “There they were. The Lambs of god. Except no one believes anymore…” Oriel longs for the comfort and security of her ‘mind country,’ in a similar way to Fish, yet it takes her a long time to reconcile with this tragedy. Fish does not recognise his mother, partly because of her refusal to acknowledge the spiritual aspects of life, and partly because it was she who brought him back incomplete. It’s only once Fish returns to the water, and the two families unite by the river that Oriel packs up her tent she, her move back into the house finally reflecting spiritual and psychological…show more content…
The stolen generation children were torn away from their families, their homes, their land, and were alienated. Trapped, like Fish, in a place where they are incomplete and here we see these spirits returning to the ‘sea.. This alludes to the displacement of the Aboriginal people, Winton reflecting the strong Indigenous rights movement of the 1980’s, pushing for recognition and land rights .The idea that “we came from it and return to it” again reflects Winton’s Christianity, dust to dust, ashes to ashes. Pushing the story onto a metaphysical plain, creating layers of meaning, and linking this to dual aspects of Australian spirituality, Christianity, and Indigenous belief, is an important technique of Winton’s which creates ongoing questions and layers of meaning, and will certainly continue to make it worthy of critical
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