English Essay " "That Eye, The Sky' Critically comment on Winton's presentation of the supernatural in "That Eye, The Sky' "That Eye, The Sky', by Tim Winton, is a story about love, a boy's vision of the world and the faint line between the natural and supernatural. Winton focuses on presenting the reader with a view of the mystical and extraordinary i.e. things beyond natural. The story is narrated by a young boy named Ort who is in his last year of Primary school, going onto High School. It's through his eyes that we are able to see how different Ort perceives the world from other people. He comments on many ordinary things but turns them into extraordinary thi ...view middle of the document...
His sense of smell is quite developed also as shown on page 149, "The smell of bush flowers comes in real strong. I can smell the milk. I can smell the honey from the bees. The dying trees look strong and think and all the colours come in the window like someone's pouring them in on us". From this we can see that Ort is a very perceptive boy and another sense which he uses extensively is sight.The human sense of sight plays a very important role in "That Eye, The Sky'. Throughout the novel there are constant references made towards eyes, or eyesight. Ort is at the age of wonder and fantasy and this is because he hasn't been "molded' by society. He thinks there must be bigger, more powerful things in life, and one of these things is the sky. Ort interprets the sky as a giant eye "looking down on us' (page 4). He speaks a lot about the sky being an eye and this plays as a central theme to the novel. He also thinks that the sky/eye is also God, looking after the family and watching everything they do, as shown through the dialogue between Henry and Ort on page 89 starting with "So, God's up there?" Henry gives Ort an image of God and Ort is convinced, and has answered one of his many questions. The non-stop surveillance the sky does is also mirrored by Ort. He is often finding himself looking and observing at everything including his fathers, Henry Warburton's and his own "old fellah' or penis, his sister masturbating in the shower, intercourse between his mother and father and also Henry and Tegwyn. He is even called a pervert by their next door neighbour Mr Cherry. Ort doesn't see what he is doing is harmful and hasn't been told not to do it. He thinks what he is doing is perfectly fine. Another supernatural occurrence that happens in the novel is the light that Ort constantly sees.The use of light in the novel often represents good things about to or that are happening. One thing Ort seems to see several times are clouds. One incident would be on page 43 "There is something over the house. Like a cloud. Like a cloud. It glows, just sitting over the roof. Hell! It's bright as the moon". After he discovers the light or cloud he finds out that his fat...
