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
Many years ago, a very large house was owned by a wealthy widow. The only frequent visitor to the house was an Anglican priest, who was determined to see the goodness in the widow’s heart despite her callous nature. He suggested that she open her house to native young women, and she took his advice. She kept several girls in her house and taught them manners and etiquette that she considered important. But the girls had been taken from their families and were miserable, and eventually one of them took her own life by drinking ant poison. After the widow found the girl’s body in the library, she dismissed the rest of the girls from the house. A week later, the widow’s heart stopped while she played the piano in the library, and her nose hit the middle C key as she slumped forward, dead.
This bit of backstory marks the first appearance of the house on Cloud Street where most of the novel takes place. The house’s sordid history gives it an aura of foreboding before any of the main characters even arrive there, as it’s implied that the house (or at least the library) could be haunted by the two women who died there. This history also continues the ongoing theme of tragic death (or near-death, in Fish’s case) that hangs over the opening chapters of the novel. The trauma experienced in the house years ago echoes the trauma that the Lamb and Pickles families have recently experienced.
Themes
The widow’s enormous house sat empty and abandoned for years, until Sam’s brother Joel bought the property with some of the money he’d won from gambling, thinking that he could retire there someday. In his last will and testament, Joel left the house to Sam, along with 2,000 pounds. According to the will, Joel’s pub is to be sold at once, but the house cannot be resold for the next 20 years. The house is in the city of Perth, on Cloud Street, and now it’s the only place the Pickles family can move into.
Joel’s last will and testament gives the Pickles family one final bit of Joel’s good luck in the form of a place to live. The will’s stipulations about the house not being sellable for 20 years reveals how well Joel knew his brother, as Sam would have been likely to sell the house immediately and gamble away the money otherwise. Even after Joel’s untimely death, the Pickles family still finds themselves in debt to Joel and his nearly-perfect luck.
Themes
After leaving the pub and the town of Geraldton behind, the Pickles arrive at Number One, Cloud Street. It’s a massive old place, with enough room for 20 or more people to live in relative comfort. But despite its size and sense of faded grandeur, it feels somewhat unnerving and needs a lot of work to start feeling like a home. They get the house clean enough to live in within a day, and it isn’t long before furniture from the pub starts arriving. As the family tries to get comfortable in the musty old place, Rose resolves to make the room with the piano into a library, but she soon changes her mind as she finds the windowless room to be too stuffy and unsettling. She puts the books in her own room instead.
The age and size of their new home makes the Pickles family immediately feel alienated and out of place. Not only are they suddenly and unexpectedly living in a new town, but they’re also forced to try getting comfortable in a house that seems far too big for them. This contributes to the house becoming almost a character of its own—a symbol of how strange, disorganized, and bewildering the family’s lives have become. Rose’s odd sense of discomfort in the library once again hints at the possibility that the room is haunted.
Themes
Eventually, the check for the 2,000 pounds arrives in the mail, but Sam almost immediately loses it all on gambling, as he believes that the Shifty Shadow is on his side now. Dolly is furious with him for making the family poor again, and she’s still struggling to come to terms with his injury. She often wanders out to the nearby train station and watches the strangers go about their unknown business, jealous of their seemingly happy and exciting lives. As the whole world seems to move and go on adventures around her, Dolly feels trapped in her own life with Sam. Both of them sadly remember happier days between them, and the entire Pickles family feels lost and out of place in their new home.
Dolly’s lonely people-watching highlights her desperate desire to feel independent from her family, and especially from Sam. Despite not being a gambler herself, Dolly feels forced to rely on random luck just as much as her husband, as he’s the family’s only source of income as well as the source of all of their financial worries. She remains furious with Sam not only for the accident that took his fingers, but for gambling all of the family’s money away again and again. Now more than ever, she longs to escape from Sam and live a life free of family obligations.
Themes
Get the entire Cloudstreet LitChart as a printable PDF.
One day, after coming home from school with her brothers, Rose finds her father in the backyard, working with a stranger to erect a tin fence that splits the yard in half. She also finds that the door to her room has been locked, and all of her things have been moved to a different room. Many of the other rooms on the same side of the house have been locked, and Rose soon discovers that her father has decided to rent out half of the house to another family, as a means of income. Rose confronts Sam as he finishes building a second privy on the other side of the yard. He keeps a chipper attitude about their new soon-to-be tenants, but she can’t forgive him for doing this.
Despite her empathy towards Sam so far, Rose begins to share in her mother’s hatred of Sam at this point. Rose had already begun to resent her dependence on her unreliable family, but having to share their new home with another family is more than she can bear. Beyond her annoyance over the decision to allow tenants, she also begins to hate Sam for putting himself in this position and needing extra income in the first place. Rose still loves her father, but at this point, she finds it increasingly difficult to feel sorry for him as before. She begins to blame Sam’s failings not on bad luck, but on bad decisions.
Themes
The Lamb family piles into their truck and heads for Perth, feeling as though they can no longer live in their hometown of Margaret River. The “miracle” of Fish’s return hasn’t been what they expected, and everyone in the town seems to treat them with pity or scorn. No one waves to them as they leave, and they don’t wave back; the Lambs feel unwelcome here, and it’s time for them to move on. The incident with Fish has even shaken their faith in God. Fish isn’t the same, and their disappointment has taken a heavy toll.
At this point, one of the Lamb family’s defining features at the beginning of the novel—their Christianity—has been almost entirely taken from them. This sets up the inner conflict that they’ll face over the years, as they struggle with their trauma of losing the Fish they knew, and their guilt over failing to save him. These negative emotions have overpowered their faith, emphasizing their feeling of being directionless. By leaving their hometown, the Lambs are symbolically leaving many of their old ways of life and belief systems behind.
Themes
The Lambs arrive at Number One, Cloud Street. Lester awkwardly introduces himself to Dolly at the front door, and it isn’t long before all eight of the Lambs are piling into their half of the massive house. Lester promises that they’ll pay the rent, and he mentions that they aren’t religious. The Pickles children have various reactions to the Lamb children as they move in under Oriel’s strict supervision. Ted mentions that Fish seems like a slow kid. But that night, as a thunderstorm rages outside, Rose catches a glimpse of Fish watching the rain by the window, and she thinks he's beautiful.
With the Lamb and Pickles families under one roof, the parallels between their traumatic experiences become clearer than ever. Both families feel lost and directionless, and both have ended up in this enormous house that seems just as strange and cluttered as their lives have become. Lester mentioning that the Lambs aren’t religious marks a sharp contrast to how they were described before, confirming that Fish’s accident has drastically shifted their worldview. Meanwhile, Rose’s unexpected attraction to Fish opens her mind to the possibility that sharing the house with another family might not be so bad.
Themes
The Pickles family and the Lamb family try to get used to living under the same roof over the next few weeks. Each family lives on one side of the house, and the hall in the middle is considered neutral territory: a “no man’s land.” The two families largely try to ignore each other, but tension occasionally builds between them. There’s only one bathroom to share among the twelve of them, and Dolly begins to resent Oriel for seeming bossy and constantly working. Oriel has her children help her start a vegetable garden in their side of the yard. This standoffishness continues, as the Pickleses feel like their home has been invaded.
As the two families adjust to living together, the theme of family vs. independence becomes more complicated. While each family relies on its own members in daily life, both the Pickles and the Lambs go out of their way to stay independent from each other, rather than melding into one bigger family. This is represented most clearly by the physical divide between either side of the house, but it also manifests in Dolly’s resentment of Oriel. While Oriel doesn’t show disdain towards Dolly in return, it’s clear that Oriel prides herself on being an industrious and responsible Lamb, rather than a comparatively lazy member of the Pickles family. This divide sparks a quiet conflict between the families that’s almost always bubbling just below the surface.
Themes
Just before dinner one night, the Lambs spin a knife on the table and ask it who’s doing the washing tonight, who’s the smartest, who’ll be married first, and so on. Whoever it points to when it stops spinning is the knife’s answer, and Lester and the children joke that “the knife never lies.” After this game, Oriel asks Lester to say Grace and bless their food, but Lester is flippant on the subject of God, thanking his wife for the meal instead. Later that night, Lester suggests the idea of opening a shop of their own in the front room of the house, as there isn’t another general store nearby. Oriel is skeptical at first, but Lester spins the knife again to decide whether or not they’ll try it. Oriel wonders if everything is based on luck, as if the whole world is like a spinning knife game.
The spinning knife game marks the first time that the theme of chance has affected the lives of the Lamb family, rather than the Pickles. As Oriel wonders whether everything is decided by luck, she considers the worldview that Sam Pickles has held for his entire life, creating a thematic link between the two families. This new focus on random chance comes at the expense of the Lambs’ religious faith, which is shown to be greatly diminished in this moment. Whether jokingly or not, the Lambs have become more willing to trust the whims of fate than the God they once strongly believed in.
Themes
The Lambs soon open a shop in the front room. Dolly comes down to see them set it up, and it’s difficult for her to hide her resentment about the Lambs’ work ethic and Oriel’s bossiness. Oriel always seems to know the proper way of doing things, and Dolly feels insecure in comparison, as if she’s constantly being judged. The entire Pickles family begins to fade into the background of the household as the Lambs’ shop quickly grows in popularity. Oriel keeps her children working in the shop constantly. They sell food and general goods, and it isn’t long before the shop is common knowledge in the neighborhood. Eventually, “Cloudstreet” becomes the common name for the shop and the house in general.
Once again, the two families at Cloudstreet deepen the dividing lines between them, each striving for independence from the other. However, with the opening of the shop in the front room, the Lambs become much more distinct from the Pickles family, setting themselves apart in a way that only worsens the Pickles’ resentment of them. This reinforces the house’s status as a symbol of the strange and chaotic lives the families lead, as it becomes two different places in one. Despite their similar experiences with loss and misfortune, the families of Cloudstreet are determined to stay distinct from each other, whether out of spite, pride, or both.
Themes
During this period, Quick Lamb struggles with guilt and regret, feeling that it should have been him instead of Fish who almost drowned. He still blames himself for the incident, and Fish’s behavior depresses Quick. Fish had been funny, clever, and lovable, but now he’s slow, distant, and childlike despite his age; his near-death experience has taken most of his original intelligence and personality away from him. Quick finds pictures of prisoners of war and other miserable people in the newspaper and hangs them on his bedroom wall as a constant reminder that he’s the lucky one; he survived with his mind intact, unlike his brother. At night, the people from the pictures fly off the wall and dance over Quick’s bed while he sleeps.
Fish’s behavior implies that his “miraculous” survival after nearly drowning might be a curse rather than a blessing. His death would probably have been just as traumatic for his family to deal with, and Quick would likely still feel guilty for letting his brother die. But because Fish is still alive and present in the Lambs’ daily lives, his deteriorated mental state is a constant reminder of their failure to fully save him. Fish has become a living manifestation of Quick’s trauma, never letting him let go of survivor’s guilt. Rather than trying to fight these feelings, Quick leans into them instead, through the photos and news clippings on his wall. The images coming to life at night could be a figment of his imagination, or possibly a supernatural occurrence. This ambiguity is an early example of the blurred lines between reality and the supernatural throughout the novel.
Themes
As Quick struggles with his self-hatred, the Lamb girls find themselves excited to live in the city instead of the country. They enjoy the feeling of living in a large house with landings and banisters, and they quickly become recognizable by everyone in the neighborhood. With their distinct hairstyles and dresses made by Oriel from scrap material, their popularity grows as people see them working in the shop. Hattie seems to grow up quickly, Elaine tries to look mature around boys, and Red lets herself become the boyish rascal of the family now that Fish no longer fills that role. All three of them enjoy talking to the boys who visit the shop.
Even as the Lamb girls grow older and become more independent, it’s notable that they’re still easily identifiable as Lambs by their clothes and hairstyles. This subtly maintains the conflict between family and independence, though the Lamb girls don’t seem desperate to escape from their family as other characters are. Instead, characters like Red struggle to find a unique niche for themselves within the family structure. Each of the girls aims to become a distinct and independent person, but still only within the context of being Lambs as well.
Themes
One night, Oriel and Lester lie in bed and reflect sadly on Fish’s condition, Quick’s depressed mood, and their own loss of faith. Lester wonders if Quick blames himself for what happened to Fish, and Oriel admits that she blames Quick, Lester, and God. But she nonetheless tries to give Fish a happy life despite knowing that he’ll have the mind of a child his whole life; she balks at the idea that she could live a despondent, inactive life like Dolly Pickles. Lester knows that there have been times when he’s thought it would have been better for Fish to die than to live his whole life as a child. But he also knows that he can’t meddle with life, as life and death is all there is.
At this point, Oriel and Lester openly address what’s made them lose their faith. While their weakened Christianity has been a major shift, Oriel demonstrates that she still holds fast to her principles in spite of everything that’s happened. Even without her faith, she still finds it important to work hard and remain responsible to herself and her family, in contrast to Dolly’s more apathetic approach to life. In this moment, both Oriel and Lester seem to face the trauma that’s shaped their new lives, and reluctantly accept that there’s probably nothing they could have done to change the outcome.
Themes
Despite their general distrust of doctors, Lester and Oriel take Fish to a doctor to have him examined, hoping to shed some light on his condition. The doctor seems a bit confused as he examines Fish and asks him questions. He asks Oriel questions about how long Fish was underwater, insisting that Fish’s behavior isn’t normal for a child who’s experienced what Fish has been through. Oriel becomes angry at the implication that she’s lying to the doctor, and she storms out of the room with her son when the doctor suggests the possibility of putting Fish in a “specialized home” where he could receive psychiatric help. On her way out, Oriel insists that there’s no home more specialized than her own.
Oriel’s reaction to the doctor’s suggestions creates a deeper divide between Oriel’s family and everyone else. Rather than take the advice of a stranger she distrusts, Oriel defensively insists that she always knows what’s best for her own family. It’s possible that her extreme reaction is caused in part by the trauma of letting Fish lose his mind, and her determination to prove she’s fit to raise her son regardless. By rejecting outside help, Oriel aims to absolve herself of the guilt associated with the accident by taking full responsibility for Fish.
Themes
Some time later, Lester hurries home to announce the good news to the rest of the Lamb family: World War II has ended in Europe. His children joke around about it and remind him that the fighting’s not over yet, and Lester is bemused by their attitude. Meanwhile, Fish’s development is still stunted, and it’s clear that he’s forgotten almost everything he had learned before the accident. He seems to remember everyone in his family except for Oriel, as he often looks right through her and hardly ever acknowledges her existence. Even young Lon considers Fish to be the baby of the family, and Fish often has childlike screaming episodes. Fish loves spinning the knife and the sound of the river, and Rose still finds him beautiful.
Fish continues to serve as a living, breathing symbol of the Lamb family’s trauma, guilt, and regret. Oriel is especially affected as Fish seems to forget her completely, making her feel more and more responsible for his childlike state of mind. She feels almost as if she’s being punished for bringing him back to consciousness, as she’s forced to live with a son who’s not the same boy he was before. Fish’s love of the river and the spinning knife constantly reinforces his family’s regrets about the accident, reminding them of the water that claimed his mind and the seemingly random events that brought this about. The Lamb children’s relaxed attitude about the end of World War II might be a result of their living with constant trauma and stress regardless of any distant conflict.
Themes
During a slow work day, the Lambs sit around the kitchen table while Oriel darns socks, and Quick asks Oriel what she was doing during World War I. She answers that she waited for a child to come home from the war, clarifying that she practically raised her stepmother’s children. The “child” she was waiting for was her stepbrother, who didn’t survive the conflict. She tells Quick that she loved her father, and she knows that he loved her. She recalls a time when he killed the last pig on his farm and used its bladder to help heal her blisters after she’d been burned in a bushfire. Lester also recalls his memories of the old war days, when he was a musician.
This is one of the first glimpses into Oriel’s backstory, revealing how family bonds have always been deeply important to her. It also highlights the fact that she’s been a caretaker for a very long time, even while she was too young to be a mother. Additionally, Oriel’s story hints at the trauma she’s endured in her past, long before the more recent trauma of Fish’s accident. Oriel revisits her memories of the bushfire in greater detail later on, but in this moment, it becomes clear that Oriel has always faced hardships, loss, and heavy responsibility with the same steely determination she has now.
Themes
On Quick’s 12th birthday, Lester makes him a cake and spells Quick’s name on it in icing. As they sit around the table about to dig into it, Oriel rushes in and tells them that a lady in the shop wants a cake urgently, and she’ll pay a quid for it. Lester says they don’t have one, but Oriel grabs the birthday cake, removes the candles, wipes Quick’s name off, and rushes back to the shop with it. The incident makes everyone laugh, starting with a quiet giggle but quickly building to an uncontrollable pitch.
The Lambs sharing in this ridiculous situation shows that they’re still willing to laugh at themselves despite their unfortunate circumstances. While it’s only a brief moment of silliness, it demonstrates that the family still has plenty of their lighthearted spirit intact after Fish’s accident. For a moment, the Lambs embrace the absurdity of their lives and choose to laugh at it together.
Themes
The Lamb family carries on with their lives at Cloudstreet. Lester joins the army band as a tuba player, and since Tokyo is being bombed, Quick is sure that the war is almost over. As Christmas approaches, Hattie and Elaine finish school and grow old enough to earn a wage. Quick performs poorly at school, as he’s distracted and misses the days when being Fish’s brother meant something back in their hometown. People paid attention to Quick back then, but now he feels unimportant and doesn’t know how to feel when he gets home. During a conversation about happiness, Fish explains that he’s sad when he “wants the water.”
Cloudstreet begins to feel like home for the Lambs as the days go by, and the huge, bewildering house gradually becomes a more wholesome symbol of togetherness. Nonetheless, Quick’s homesickness shows that there’s still an underlying sense of unease in the family. He begins to realize that his popularity back in his hometown was based on his association with Fish, rather than anything Quick did as an individual. While Quick was more than happy to associate with his family back then, Fish’s behavior nowadays makes Quick wonder if becoming more independent would be better, or even possible.
Themes
Meanwhile, Sam Pickles feels a change in the air and tries to read the signs of what the Shifty Shadow is trying to tell him. He reflects on the Lambs’ constant hard work and respects them for it despite how their busy presence irritates him and Dolly. But he knows that he isn’t cut out for a life of hard work; he considers himself to be more like his father, sensing changes in luck and fate and acting accordingly to reap the benefits of his own intuition. He tells himself that his time will come, trying to find reassurance in the fact that letting the Lambs live at Cloudstreet was a gamble that has paid off.
By embracing his reliance on luck and random chance, Sam continues to distinguish himself from the hardworking Lamb family. But ironically, Sam’s feeling of independence from the Lambs is influenced heavily by family connections of his own. He only owns Cloudstreet because of the generosity of his brother Joel, and Sam’s belief in his luck stems from his father. He dismisses the insecurities brought about by the Lambs by reminding himself that they’re just another stroke of luck for him.
Themes
Dolly finds herself feeling bitter and angry as winter comes. With the house unusually quiet, she walks around in the backyard and teases Oriel over the tin fence, enjoying a bit of mischief. That night in their bedroom, Sam and Dolly reminisce about their past together, missing their more romantic days as Dolly observes that they aren’t even that old yet. After Sam falls asleep, Dolly walks out to the nearby railway tracks and thinks about her more distant past, reflecting vaguely on how she loved her father even though he wasn’t really her father. She feels that no one can really control the direction their life takes.
Dolly and Sam sharing in their regrets in this moment is one of the first instances of these two characters interacting in a positive way. Their mutual nostalgic sadness brings them together for a brief moment, reminding the reader that the two of them loved each other deeply not too long ago. Despite her frustration over Sam’s reliance on gambling, Dolly admits to herself that everything might be based on random chance, from the luckiest windfalls to the personal tragedies that haunt her past. Dolly’s moment of reflection reveals a surprising similarity to Oriel, who also wonders if senseless luck determines everything in life.
Themes
That same night, people far away “turn to shadows and powder in an instant,” and the war is over. Rose awakens to the sound of bells the next morning as everyone in the house and the neighborhood joyously celebrates the end of the war. Ted bursts into her room and breaks the good news. Amid the raucous celebrations, she dances with strangers in the hallway and takes a handful of humbugs from Quick. Fish spins the knife on the front porch and exclaims with glee when it stops spinning to point at him.
The end of World War II marks the first time that the Lamb and Pickles families come together and mingle in celebration. Such a momentous occasion allows the families to briefly forget their differences. The presence of strangers in the hall emphasizes the unity not only of Cloudstreet’s families, but of the entire country on this day. The presence of the spinning knife during the celebration hints at more unpredictable events to come, and implies that maybe even the war itself was settled by a metaphorical roll of the dice.
Themes
