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The Turning Tim Winton Analysis

Decent Essays

Award winning Australian author Tim Winton’s book ‘The Turning’ published in 2004, provides an engaging and relative reading experience through a collection of seventeen short stories that follow the lives of the same characters at different critical moments in their lives. Winton utilises a variety of writing techniques most inclusive of key features and his style of writing. His use of character development and descriptive language throughout the chapters help to unravel different overlapping themes, settings and characters to effectively engage a young, teenage audience within each of his short stories. Winton develops clear and connected themes represented in the following story examples of ‘On Her Knees’, ‘Abbreviation’ and ‘Damaged Goods’. …show more content…

In the sixth short story. ‘On Her Knees’, Winton explores the relationship between a mother and son and focuses on the key issue of Sacrifice. The mother has taken a job below her standing to pay off debt from a now distant husband and to allow her son to go to university so they can experience a better life. Winton invites the audience to consider the mother’s sacrifice by utilising the son’s point of view of how he feels about his responsibilities into account of his mother’s new job. The son often helps his mother at her new job and when he isn’t helping he is ‘stewed with guilt’ (pg 101). Consequently, the guilt of his mum’s sacrifice has put an enormous amount of pressure on him, as if he might fail her if he doesn’t proceed to do well at university. Winton’s use of character development to present the theme of sacrifice, invites the audience to consider the value behind the sacrifices we make for the people we love and care for. Unlike this short story, ‘On Her Knees’, ‘Abbreviation’ and ‘Damaged Goods’ can be seen as

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