Abstract
Spaces, (Non-)Places, and Fluid Identities in Tim Winton’s Fiction
Highlights
Tim Winton’s representation of space is the major aspect of his narratives
To consider the role of geography in Winton’s fiction, it is necessary to focus on character-place connections, and study the background in terms of humanistic geography, which, as Yi-Fu Tuan notices, seeks to achieve “an understanding of the human world by studying people’s relations with nature, their geographical behavior as well as their feelings and ideas in regard to space and place” (1976, 266)
Winton skillfully merges the personal with the national, and this convergence seems not to be coincidental for the space is a vent to all that has been repressed: the history of the land and character’s personal traumas. This makes identity crisis experienced by Winton’s characters – white nonAboriginal Australians – a complex issue as their personal dramas intertwine with the maladies of the postcolonial individual and society: unsettled past and unaccomplished reconciliation
Summary
Tim Winton’s representation of space is the major aspect of his narratives His fictitious worlds comprise vast, deserted and seemingly boundless spaces, as well as apparently distinctive landscapes, places and locales. The duality of the world presented in his narratives, its tendency to be both boundless and discontinuous, has a profound influence on his protagonists’ struggles to overcome their identity crises and recover from traumas. In this respect, the unbound spaces bridge the past and the present, which contributes to their timelessness. Places and locations are responsible for the fractured, gap-slashed, and discontinuous quality of Winton’s universes. When his protagonists traverse the imagined Australia, the boundaries separating the settings expose psychological fault lines that run through their lives and force them to confront their pasts. The article explores how Winton’s fictitious places are rendered nonplaces, and looks into the implications of the process for his characters’ identities
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