The Pensive Writer

OK, so it has been a while since I have written a purely academic essay, but having read so much from Tim Winton lately, I somehow felt compelled to write something with a little more gravity. Here goes... How Does Time Winton Present Social Class in Modern Australia in 'Dirt Music’ and ‘Eyrie’? In Dirt Music and Eyrie , Tim Winton draws upon his beloved Western Australia to create settings and characters that are rich and raw. And with that rawness comes an honesty about how he sees modern Australia: on one hand it can be beautiful like much of its landscape; on the other it can be far from perfect, perpetuating the very same Anglo class systems that the Australian Dream sought to destroy. Through his own language and characters there is no doubt that Winton presents a world in which different Australians can live a very different experience. In Dirt Music the life of lonely, middle-class Georgie often contrasts with that of her lover, Luther Fox, and his luckless, cas...

So I have a baby girl and right now she smiles at anything that pleases her, which is a lot of things. Obviously I think she's beautiful but she neither knows nor cares if she is or not. She is innocent, unabashed and totally candid about how she feels about everything. Dammit, I envy her. Actually, I think I would have envied her much more as a young girl. This is because I could be an awkward and self-conscious kid and when it came to meeting boys, I was that times ten. What’s more, I was not shy in the usual sense of the word. My behaviour was actually quite extrovert, serving as a front for my various anxieties. I chatted plenty but often cringed at every word. Youth insecurity may be nothing new, of course, but this itself is a problem. If it is so timeless, then it is sure also to come Daughter's way at some point. When it does, can I help her to manage it, emerge unscathed, even? If so, it makes sense first to identify the causes, starting with my own exp...