The Turning

The Turning

by

Tim Winton

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Turning makes teaching easy.

Tony Macoli Character Analysis

Tony Macoli is a small, mean-spirited young boy who, after the narrator of “Big World” moves to Angelus, decides to bully him relentlessly for undisclosed reasons. Tony’s bullying only ceases after Biggie attacks him, sending him to the hospital, after which he never bothers the narrator again. Many years in the future, much to the narrator’s surprise, Tony becomes the richest merchant banker in all of Australia.

Tony Macoli Quotes in The Turning

The The Turning quotes below are all either spoken by Tony Macoli or refer to Tony Macoli. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Trauma and Memory Theme Icon
).
Big World Quotes

Right then I can’t imagine and end to the quiet. The horizon fades. Everything looks impossibly far off. In two hours I’ll hear Biggie and Meg in his sleeping bag and she’ll cry out like a bird and become so beautiful, so desirable in the total dark that I’ll begin to cry. In a week Biggie and Meg will blow me off in Broome and I’ll be on the bus south for a second chance at the exams. In a year Biggie will be dead in a mining accident in the Pilbara and I’ll be reading Robert Louis Stevenson at his funeral while his relatives shuffle and mutter with contempt. Meg won’t show. I’ll grow up and have a family of my own and see Briony Nevis, tired and lined in a supermarket queue, and wonder what all the fuss was about. And one night I’ll turn on the TV to discover the fact that Tony Macoli, the little man with the nose that could sniff round corners, is Australia’s richest merchant banker. All of it is unimaginable.

Related Characters: The Narrator of “Big World” (speaker), Biggie, Tony Macoli, Briony Nevis, Meg
Related Symbols: The Open Sky
Page Number: 14-15
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Turning LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Turning PDF

Tony Macoli Quotes in The Turning

The The Turning quotes below are all either spoken by Tony Macoli or refer to Tony Macoli. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Trauma and Memory Theme Icon
).
Big World Quotes

Right then I can’t imagine and end to the quiet. The horizon fades. Everything looks impossibly far off. In two hours I’ll hear Biggie and Meg in his sleeping bag and she’ll cry out like a bird and become so beautiful, so desirable in the total dark that I’ll begin to cry. In a week Biggie and Meg will blow me off in Broome and I’ll be on the bus south for a second chance at the exams. In a year Biggie will be dead in a mining accident in the Pilbara and I’ll be reading Robert Louis Stevenson at his funeral while his relatives shuffle and mutter with contempt. Meg won’t show. I’ll grow up and have a family of my own and see Briony Nevis, tired and lined in a supermarket queue, and wonder what all the fuss was about. And one night I’ll turn on the TV to discover the fact that Tony Macoli, the little man with the nose that could sniff round corners, is Australia’s richest merchant banker. All of it is unimaginable.

Related Characters: The Narrator of “Big World” (speaker), Biggie, Tony Macoli, Briony Nevis, Meg
Related Symbols: The Open Sky
Page Number: 14-15
Explanation and Analysis: