Setting

Published in 2006, the story “Cloud Busting” by Tara June Winch is set in Australia and covers events that take place in 1967 but also in the 1980s (when the main narrator was a child).

Physical setting

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The physical setting of the beach is described with numerous details over several paragraphs (p. 192, ll. 1-22). These descriptions of the setting help convey the narrator’s nostalgia about her childhood, and the way children perceive and interact with their environment. Here is an excerpt presenting the beach setting:

We toss our bodies off the eelgrass-covered dunes and race down the shore where seaweed beads trace the waterline. Little bronze teardrops—we bust them too. Bubble-wrapped pennies. We collect pipis, squirming our heels into the shallow water, digging deeper under the sandy foam. (p. 192, ll. 7-11)

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Social setting

The social setting of the frame story explores aspects related to family relationships and childhood. The story within explores aspects about racial prejudices, discrimination, poverty, and friendship.

When the narrator was a child, she lived a relatively carefree life; living next to the beach, having a close relationship with her brother, and a caring mother.

However, the mother’s story about her own mother explores the hardships experienced by Aboriginals in the late 1960s. Alice (the grandmother) had most of her children taken away from her and placed in missions ran by the Church...

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