Literature and film has the ability to demonstrate the hidden reality of people’s lives and their determination to stand up against their struggles. Both Tim Winton’s novel, Cloudstreet, published in 1991, and Jonathan Teplitzky’s 2013 film, The Railway Man, consider the extent to which we can cope with immense pain. Specifically, both Winton and Teplitzky explore the impact of suffering to which we are able to cope and reconcile, with ourselves and others.
Initially, in ‘Cloudstreet’ the house fire that killed Oriel’s mother and sisters was a tragedy which did not defeat her but unveiled her determination to deal with what life throws at her. Nevertheless, Oriel is filled with grief and pain over her tragic loss but still manages to conceal her emotions.
‘I raised six kids and waited for one of em to come back’. [p71]
Oriel becomes…show more content… And I blame you. And God. [p64]
Oriel wants to give Fish ‘the gentlest life we can’ because ‘it’s like he’s three years old...’ [p64]. She trusts in God, but is betrayed when her son becomes a fragment of his former self. Winton asks us to sympathise with Oriel’s desperate actions to make things right with her son. At times he is all that Oriel has.
Oriel is perceived initially in 'Cloudstreet' as determined and strong-willed. However, when fish drowns she sleeps in a tent to isolate herself from her family, when she is needed most to keep them together. Oriel deals with her pain mentally by taking refuge but ‘the real reason’ [p133] why she moved into the tent ‘remained even a mystery to Oriel’. [p133]
‘I want the miracle finished off. I demand it, and I’m gonna fight to get it’. [p232]
Oriel tries to make up for her lack of stability, emotionally, through hard work and ‘goin faster against the current’. [p230] Oriel strives by ‘mak[ing] war on the bad and [not] surrender[ing]. [p230] Through her vulnerability, Winton perhaps makes us realise Oriel’s courageous efforts in order to overcome her daily
