The novel CloudStreet by Tim Winton presents a series of events that can be read as a story. There are important themes evident in the novel that are contributed with the help of the technique of narrative structure. In order to accept the views presented in this novel, we look at circular narrative and the chapters and sub-chapters within. Winton has concentrated some of his views to be the importance of family, the importance of place, understanding each other, nature and spiritual world and Aboriginality.
The circular narrative structure of Cloudstreet shows that novel begins at the present, moves onto the past and comes back to present. This is evident in the prologue and the last sub-chapter called "Sun, Moon, Stars". In the prologue we are given an image of a happy family picnic which ends up with someone drowning in the river. While reading the prologue the people described remained un-named as to give a sense of mystery. But the quote at the end of the prologue "from the broad vaults and spaces you can see it all again because it never ceases to be" (pg 3) gives us a small clue as to how the story if turned back to the past. We know from the novel that the person who drowned was Fish Lamb and from his eyes in the spiritual world we see the physical world in the past. From this we can see how Winton has tied in the physical world and the spiritual world. However the last sub-chapter in the novel called "Sun, Moon, Stars" reveals the names of the families and describes how Fish is returned to the river to reunite with his spiritual self. In this sense readers accept this idea of nature and spiritual world and Fish has longed to be with the river for so long. It states at the end "I"m Fish Lamb, for as long as it took to die,.as long as it took to tell you all this". At the end of the novel there is also an epilogue which is similar to the prologue in the sense that the people remain un-named.
