Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Cloudstreet, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Chance, Choice, and Personal Responsibility
Family vs. Independence
Trauma and Guilt
Religion and the Supernatural
Shared Humanity
Summary
Analysis
Life goes on at Cloudstreet, and summer comes again. Rose spends plenty of time with the baby (Harold Samson Lamb) at the beach, and everyone in the house adores him and spoils him at every opportunity. Lon and Pansy have their baby as well, and Pansy gets pregnant again very soon afterwards, to Oriel’s silent disapproval. Dolly starts inviting bingo friends over on some nights and Rose starts helping in the shop, quickly becoming attached to it. Rose still loves Oriel, but she admits to herself that Oriel’s kindness and competence feels harsh. Oriel always knows the right way of doing things, and her superhuman competence and trustworthiness is exactly what makes her dislikeable in some ways. Regardless, the two of them get along better than ever.
The Lamb and Pickles families continue to grow closer over their shared love of the new baby and the happy union of Quick and Rose. While the house is still technically divided, the families no longer make efforts to distinguish themselves from each other. Their strengthening bonds reinforce the theme of shared humanity, but Rose’s feelings about Oriel add a layer of complication to this happy period. Rose’s reliance on Oriel is still a source of insecurity and mild resentment, but these negative feelings aren’t nearly as strong as they once were. This is a sign of character growth for Rose, as she’s now more honest with herself about the causes of her resentment.
Themes
Sam continues working at the mint, where he’s become something of a minor celebrity among the workers after working there for so many years. His bad luck at the races carries on as always, but his coworkers have a hard time believing he’s really that unlucky. They don’t bother checking his pockets at the door on his way out of the mint anymore, but he still only smuggles out an occasional coin or two in his mouth. It’s been almost 20 years since the Pickles first moved into Cloudstreet, and when 20 years are up, the house can be sold. Sam thinks about selling the place and using the money to retire somewhere nice, but he doesn’t tell Dolly about the idea yet.
Sam’s story begins to come full circle as his luck becomes legendary at his workplace. His coworkers’ opinions about his good luck prompt the reader to reflect on where his supposedly terrible luck has landed him after all is said and done. He owns a large house with tenants, has a happy family and a steady job, and even Dolly is warming up to him again. Getting an outsider’s perspective on Sam’s life highlights just how lucky he’s been over the years, even if most of his gambles don’t pay off.
Themes
The killer’s trial would have easily made the front page of the newspapers if not for Kennedy’s assassination. Rose and Quick receive notice that their house is ready and that they need to move in soon, but they hesitate and decide to move out of Cloudstreet when they feel ready. Later, the two of them celebrate at the kitchen table upon hearing that the killer has been sentenced to death by hanging. Lester and Oriel get upset with Quick as they overhear this; Lester says that the killer is only a man, and Oriel insists that “an eye for an eye” is a barbaric philosophy. Quick wonders why they seem to have such sympathy for the murderer, and Lester tells him that Oriel still tries to hold onto her Christian beliefs about loving thy neighbor as thyself.
Their hesitation about leaving Cloudstreet implies that Quick and Rose might be truly happy living there after all, despite both of their desperate attempts to become independent earlier in the novel. Another indication that things have changed is Oriel and Lester’s attitude about the killer’s death sentence. Fish’s accident made both of them much less religious, but now they’re back to quoting the Bible, and passionately at that. Most importantly, they use this religious language to empathize with the killer and acknowledge his humanity despite his terrible crimes. Quick’s straightforward notions of good and evil seem to be at odds with his parents’ more nuanced approach to the situation, especially as they cite one part of the Bible (“love thy neighbor”) while dismissing another (“an eye for an eye”) as barbaric.
Themes
One morning, Lester dresses for a fishing trip but secretly heads to a cathedral instead. He feels a kind of homesickness as he watches the religious ceremonies, and he quietly wonders what he really believes. Quick has a brief encounter with his old girlfriend Lucy Wentworth as he visits her florist shop to buy flowers for Rose’s birthday. He feels relieved that Lucy doesn’t seem to recognize him. At night, Oriel still sometimes wonders why she doesn’t sleep in the house, even after it’s recently started to feel lighter and friendlier inside. She can’t figure it out, but she still feels like she can’t go back yet.
Lester’s renewed interest in religion is likely brought about by the recent positive changes in his life. Now that his family is happier and healthier than ever, it’s possible that he feels ashamed for abandoning his faith after Fish’s accident. It’s easier to believe in a divine plan now that things are going well, but his doubts still linger after all he’s been through. The reappearance of Lucy Wentworth reminds Quick of how far he’s come since he ran away from home, and even Oriel seems to be on the brink of a major breakthrough. Overall, only a few minor doubts remain to hold the families of Cloudstreet back from living happy lives.
Themes
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Quick lets himself relax and take it easy during his patrols, until he spots the facedown body of a child floating on the river, near the shore. Two crying children have already spotted it, and Quick rushes out and hauls the boy onto dry land; it seems like the boy has been dead for an hour already. Quick tries not to cry as more officers are summoned and he looks at the boy’s lifeless face, remembering the accident with Fish and wondering if this kind of thing will keep happening to him forever. Later, at the station, the sergeant lets Quick know that the boy was one of the killer’s sons. Quick is deeply shaken by this news, as it forces him to imagine the killer as not just a monster, but a man with children and “old twisted hopes.”
The revelation of the drowned boy’s identity shakes Quick to his core, making him reexamine everything he once believed about good and evil. Finding the body of the killer’s son forces Quick to relive Fish’s accident much more vividly than ever before. Revisiting this trauma that’s so central to Quick’s life inevitably makes him compare himself to the deranged serial killer he’d been trying to capture for months. Just like the officers who captured the killer, Quick must face the fact that the killer is a human being, not some alien creature of pure evil. This also makes Quick reevaluate what Oriel and Lester tried to tell him about loving his neighbor as himself.
Themes
That same morning, Lon calls in sick from work. As Oriel and the other Lambs pack up the truck for the shop’s deliveries for the day, Elaine hears Lon’s baby crying upstairs. Oriel goes to investigate, and when she opens Lon’s door, she finds Lon and Pansy having sex; their baby is crying nearby with a dirty diaper. Unfazed, Oriel orders Lon to be downstairs to help with the truck in 10 minutes. Furious, Lon stacks crates in the truck bed haphazardly, and when he refuses to redo the job properly and tells Oriel to go to hell, Oriel swats him with a plank in full view of the gathering crowd, then delivers a strong punch when he starts a fistfight with her. She tells the crowd to help Lon restack the crates properly, as payment for their entertainment.
Lon continues to be a source of comic relief during the heavier sections of the novel, but his immature behavior also creates an opportunity to flesh out Oriel’s character further. Her promise to “make war” on the bad things in her life is taken to its literal extreme in this sequence, as she physically attacks her own son when he misbehaves. While Oriel proudly considers herself to be the family’s caretaker, she doesn’t hesitate to push back against Lon’s attempts to take advantage of her generosity. In Oriel’s view, taking care of her family also entails making sure that her children become just as responsible as she is, by any means necessary.
Themes
Quick returns home to find Rose spinning a butterknife on her dresser. He tells her to ask the knife if it’ll give him a holiday, and he admits he badly needs a break from work after today’s events. He tells Rose about the boy he found, and how the murderer was just a man who had become cold and twisted. He still knows that there’s good and evil in the world, but he tells Rose that there are no monsters; only people who’ve gone bad. Quick imagines that he could have easily become a terrible person himself if things had been any worse for him, and these revelations bring him to tears. Rose comforts him and implores him to be happy.
In this moment, Quick finally reckons with his revelations about the killer’s humanity. The presence of the spinning knife is a reminder of the random twists of fate that can lead a kind and ordinary person down a dark and traumatic path. Quick’s underlying worry is that the only thing that makes him different from the serial killer is pure luck and circumstance. After all, if Quick’s trauma had been any more intense, it could have broken his mind and led him to terrible violence. These realizations about human nature give him plenty of grief, but they also improve his understanding of the world. Ultimately, this experience changes him for the better.
Themes
The police sergeant gives Quick a week off work, as Quick seems tired and burnt-out. He and Rose discuss their vacation plans, and Rose insists that they don’t go fishing this time. She suggests that they should simply go driving out in the country and make it up as they go along. Meanwhile, Lester drives up to the new house that’s been built for Quick and Rose. He drops to his knees and prays by the side of the empty house, trying to ignore the kookaburra in a nearby tree, whose calling sounds like mocking laughter.
Rose’s insistence that she and Quick don’t go fishing is her way of taking care of him and helping him move on. She knows that fishing will only remind him of the accident with Fish again, and at this point, she’s ready for both of them to heal and move on. Meanwhile, the kookaburra laughing at Lester represents his own remaining doubts about faith and prayer. A part of him still feels silly for believing in a higher power, but he prays nonetheless, demonstrating how much he's changed since Fish’s accident.
Themes
On his way home from voting, Sam encounters a Black man standing across the street from Cloudstreet. Sam asks the man if he voted, but the man only smiles in response. He asks Sam if that’s his house and Sam explains that he’s planning on selling it, figuring that it’ll be bulldozed and replaced by a newer, uglier building. The Black man warns him against selling it, telling him that places are powerful and important. The man’s intense stare strangely reminds Sam a bit of his father. He asks the man again how he voted, only for the man to walk away, shaking his head.
Once again, the mysterious Black man appears to warn the residents of Cloudstreet about events to come and point them in the right direction. While this could technically be a different man from the one Quick encountered earlier, it’s heavily implied that this is the same person. The fact that he’s compared to Sam’s father suggests that he can be trusted, but the exact nature of the strange man and the other supernatural events is never fully explained. This maintains a sense of mystery and intrigue to the very end.
Themes
One morning, Dolly is out of bed earlier than Sam for a change. She feeds magpies in the backyard; this has recently become a regular pastime of hers. Sam joins her in the yard and tells her he’s been thinking about selling the house, as they’d make a lot of money from it and it’s such an old place anyway. Dolly is firmly opposed to the idea, reminding him that the house was a gift from Sam’s brother Joel, and that it’s unlucky to turn down a gift. Sam tells Dolly she hates the house, but she admits she doesn’t know about that. She tells him that it’s really Oriel who’s been keeping them alive and well all these years.
This conversation highlights Dolly’s significant growth as a character ever since she reconciled with Rose. All of her old bitterness and drunkenness is gone, replaced by a new, meditative hobby and a sense of gratitude towards Oriel, whom Dolly despised for years. Dolly still has plenty of progress left to make, but her attitude during this exchange makes it clear that she’s already drastically changed for the better. For once, she even gives Sam advice about luck, which only helps to emphasize how she’s come to embrace what she previously hated about him.
Themes
Oriel arranges for both families to have a huge dinner on the night before Quick and Rose leave for their vacation. Oriel knows that the two of them will be moving into their new house after they come back from their trip, and she secretly hates the thought of losing them, so she feels she deserves this one last night of seeing them. Every member of the Pickles family and the Lamb family gathers for the meal, and Lester says Grace with genuine thankfulness in his voice.
By bringing everyone in both families together one last time, Oriel hopes to hold onto her son for as long as possible before he becomes independent again. As much as Oriel prides herself on her strength of character and protective nature, she only feels that her life is worthwhile if her family still needs her. The two families have practically merged into one at this point, and sharing a meal has become almost commonplace. Lester’s genuine prayer marks the conclusion of his journey back to his faith, as this moment contrasts with his halfhearted Grace earlier in the novel.
Themes
During the dinner, Oriel tells Sam she heard he’s planning on selling the house. To his surprise, she says that there’s nothing to be done about it if that’s what he decides to do, as “it’s only a house.” However, she admits that she’s grown attached to the old house despite its difficulties, and she feels like it isn’t the same place it was before. She figures that they’ve all made their mark on Cloudstreet, and even Dolly admits that the house has a hold on them now. Sam decides to stay, and Lester raises a toast to both families and to their big old house at Number One, Cloud Street.
Oriel sums up what Cloudstreet has become when she says that everyone has left their mark on it. What started as a massive, alienating house split between two very different families is now a comfortable home, where the Lambs and Pickles live as one. Ultimately, it’s the merging of the families that’s made Cloudstreet into a happier place to live. The families’ surface-level differences divided them for years, but now they recognize the humanity common to each other, to everyone’s benefit. In this moment, it’s official: Cloudstreet is home.
Themes
As Quick packs the car for the trip at dawn the next morning, Fish asks him repeatedly if he can go with them on their vacation. Quick tries telling him no and brushing him off, then goes upstairs to tell Rose about it. To his surprise, Rose tells him to let Fish tag along. Quick objects and insists that Fish would cause problems for them, but Rose scolds him for being so callous towards his brother. She knows that both she and Quick will feel terrible if they don’t let Fish come with them, and she wants to enjoy herself on this trip without Quick falling into one of his gloomy moods. Reluctantly, Quick agrees with her.
This exchange makes it clear just how well Rose understands Quick at this point in their relationship. She arguably knows him better than he knows himself, as she correctly predicts how guilty he’ll feel if he doesn’t take Fish along. This level of understanding reveals the depth of Rose’s feelings for Quick, and the intimate connection they share. Their willingness to bring Fish with them also suggests that they’ve changed their approach to family and independence. Unlike before, they don’t try to avoid their family members, but instead go out of their way to include them in their lives.
Themes
Quick and Rose set off on their holiday without a plan, just as they planned. With both Harry and Fish in tow, they try to figure out where to go first, eventually deciding on the small town of Southern Cross, which Quick had always been curious to see. Fish mistakes heat ripples for water as they ride through the plains. Southern Cross turns out to be a dull place, but Quick compares it to other wheat towns he lived in, and he tells Rose about his kangaroo-hunting days. Rose teases him about his Pickles-ish impulse to look for someone he knows in this town he’s never visited, and they drive on to look for a place to camp for the night.
Rose’s teasing is another example of how the definition of family can go beyond blood relation. Quick’s hunch that he’ll randomly run into someone he knows reminds Rose of her father. In her view, this supports the idea that she and Quick are meant to be together, as they have so much in common that it often surprises them.
Themes
Unable to find a proper campsite, Quick and Rose find a space to make camp near some trees away from the road. They lie under the stars and Fish happily calls the stars “all the water.” His face seems to glow with moonlight, but there isn’t a moon in the sky to be seen. After Fish and Harry fall asleep, Rose admits to Quick that she can’t imagine moving out of Cloudstreet. She tells him that she no longer wants to be independent, if being independent means being alone. She was once miserable around her family, but things have changed. She wants to keep living in the old house, as she feels like she belongs there. Quick admits he’s been wanting to tell her the same thing for months. The two of them are brimming with happiness.
Fish once again compares the stars to water, and the inexplicable moonlight on his face implies that there’s something supernatural at work. This serves as one last hint that Fish can perceive spiritual things that others can’t, and his joy in this moment makes bringing him along worthwhile. Quick and Rose’s decision to stay at Cloudstreet permanently is the culmination of their journey. For most of their lives, they wanted nothing more than to leave their families behind and start fresh lives independently. But after all they’ve been through, Quick and Rose finally admit to themselves that they’re happier and healthier when they’re sharing their experiences—good and bad—with their kin.
Themes
Quick wakes up in the middle of the night with pale moonlight on his face, but he soon realizes that the gentle light is actually coming from Fish himself, who’s also awake and kissing Quick on the cheek. They hear a rustling in the nearby wheat, and Quick assumes it’s a herd of kangaroos. Fish gasps happily as they behold a strange sight: in the wheat, countless numbers of naked children seem to rise from the earth itself and walk silently and calmly towards something in the distance. Rose and Harry watch the army of children walk by as well, but no one says anything. The walking figures swirl around them like a vortex, and eventually the four of them fall asleep again. The strange children in the wheat take all night to pass by.
This strange vision allows both Quick and Rose to glimpse the world as Fish sees it. For a brief moment, all three of them experience something unexplainable—something spiritual and beyond their understanding. The children could be ghosts, angels, spirit guides, or something else entirely. Regardless of the specifics, their purpose is to hint at some greater mystery at the heart of everything the characters have experienced. Usually, only Fish can sense this deeper truth, but Quick and Rose get the chance to share this strange experience with him before slipping back into unconsciousness.
Themes
Thrilled and ecstatic, Quick and Rose drive back home to Cloudstreet with Harry and Fish laughing in the backseat. When they arrive, Quick jumps out of the car and surprises Elaine, who’s beginning to open up the shop for the day. Quick and Rose stir up a commotion in the house as they announce to everyone that they’re staying at Cloudstreet indefinitely, and Quick adds that they’re having a picnic to celebrate. Oriel drops the shop shutter in surprise when she realizes that they really mean it. Sam skips work for the day and Oriel closes up the shop, immediately ordering everyone to pack up the truck so that they can have a proper picnic by the river.
Oriel’s startled reaction to Quick and Rose’s sudden return emphasizes just how overjoyed she is at the news. Normally, she’s hesitant to express her happiness in the presence of her family, but in this case, she can’t contain herself. Her reaction makes this moment all the more touching, as her beloved family finally becomes whole again. Even the family’s responsibilities are tossed aside as Oriel herself insists on celebrating. In the conflict between family and independence, family has decisively won.
Themes
The Lambs and the Pickleses have a loud and joyful picnic by the riverside, sprawled on blankets in the shade of the trees. The killer is hanged that morning, and his request to be buried next to his son is denied. The world goes on, but the two families of Cloudstreet are in their own bright and happy world that day by the river. Sam watches Lester play the accordion and feels the breeze on his face, feeling like the luckiest man in the world. They eat, laugh, dance, and sing like one enormous family, united at last.
The joy of this final family gathering is tempered by the mention of the killer’s death, but this grim fact doesn’t diminish the celebrations. With both families finally and completely united, the troubles of the rest of the world—and the potential troubles in the families’ future—don’t seem to matter. Compared to the murderer, the Lambs and Pickles are surprisingly, ironically lucky. Despite all the pain and loss they’ve suffered, they’ve miraculously kept their humanity intact.
Themes
Fish Lamb runs down the jetty, grinning and laughing like a delighted child. He leans over the edge and gazes into the water, marveling at his own reflection and the colorful shimmering on the surface. Quick cries out and runs after Fish, but he makes himself stop running before he even reaches the jetty, and he’s already crying. Fish has fallen forward into the water, and the river swallows him whole. For a moment before he drowns, he becomes a man, and he sees the entire story of his family unfold before him. Fish Lamb transcends to become who he really is as he dies. Some time later, in a backyard that’s no longer split in half by a tin fence, Dolly helps Oriel Lamb pack up her tent for good. Both of them carry it inside the big old house at Number One, Cloud Street.
This final event is revealed to be what happened in the Prologue, and Fish reveals himself as the novel’s omniscient narrator. One last time, the river gives and takes away. It claims Fish’s life just as it gives him a spiritual transcendence that lets him see everything across time all at once. It’s possible that Fish was somehow meant to drown in the river from the start, as his death finally allows Oriel to move on. Fish’s presence was the last thing keeping her from moving back into the house and living with her family again, as it was Oriel who brought Fish back from the brink of death after the accident. Her relief is sure to be tinged with more grief and guilt over Fish’s death, of course. But now that the families have joined together to support each other and share their burdens, she’ll be in good company.
Themes
