Class 12 Neighbours (by Tim Winton) Summary is very important for students who wants to understand the whole story without studying each and every line of the text book. Neighbours Summary will also help you to solve all the long and short questions answers given in the exercise.
We have only provided the story summary in this article, so if you want to get the notes i.e questions answers then you can get it by clicking here (Get Notes).
About the Author
Tim Winton, full name Timothy John Winton, (b. 1960) is an Australian author of both adult and children’s novels that deal with both the experience of life in and the landscape of his native country. He competed with 35 other novelists for The Australian Literary Award presented for the best unpublished novel manuscript and won the prize in 1982 for his manuscript An Open Swimmer.
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.
It is a story about a newly married couple living in a multicultural and multilingual suburb neighbourhood. It shows that cultural and linguistic barriers cannot stop people from bestowing love and compassion.
Main Plot
Neighbours is a story about a newly married couple living in a multicultural and multilingual suburb neighbourhood. It shows that cultural and linguistic barriers cannot stop people from bestowing love and compassion.
Characters
Central Theme of the Story
The story’s central theme is about how people from different cultures can live together peacefully in a society. It tries to show that love and compassion are important for bringing together people of diverse backgrounds.
Tim Winton wants to prove that community support is crucial in society. He highlights the importance of cooperation and family. Differences in language, culture, and nationality shouldn’t prevent communities from spreading messages of love, unity, and selfless help.
We can help and care for our neighbours without needing to know their culture or language.
Neighbours Class 12 Summary
The short story “Neighbours”, written by Tim Winton, deals with a young couple who have moved to a new suburb where a lot of European immigrants live.
At first they only see the strange and sometimes disgusting customs of their new neighbourhood, so both the young couple and their neighbours have prejudices, but after a while they’re getting used to their new surrounding and the young couple starts liking their neighbours and notice that they aren’t that bad at all.
They find out that they can be friends and that they can help each other in their everyday lives, so that everybody is satisfied with their neighbourhood and their life.
In the story, the author doesn’t use names for the characters he describes. Thus, the characters are not defined and the result of that is that the characters can be regarded as role models for everyone. The young couple lived in expansive outer suburbs before they moved.
First, they feel like sojourners and don’t talk to anyone. The so-called “young man” stays at home and writes his thesis of the development of the twentieth century novel. The “young woman” works in a hospital.
After that, the whole neighbourhood starts to talk with them and they offer their help. So the young couple becomes proud of their neighbours. Although the couple has not planned on a pregnancy, the young woman is pregnant in spring and after a short while their neighbours become aware of it. Everybody offers their help and they are very polite.
After the birth of their child all the neighbours are excited and wish their best. The birth is a wonder for the young man and at the end he realizes that “the twentieth century novel had not prepared him for this”.
The story shows that immigrants can be seen as social enrichment to Australian society. Their great sense of community helps the couple to understand that intolerance, prejudice and discrimination are based on ignorance.
Thank you so much for the summary 💜