The Australian author Catherine Moffat is known for her short stories, her stories often take place in Australia and her themes are frequently about social justice and people who live on the edge. The short story “Better homes and Gardens” is also concerned with similar themes as seen in some of her other texts, which is people living on the edge of themselves. This analytical essay is published in 2017 and I will mainly focus on the setting, characterization, and the themes, which Catherine Moffat is known for.
The story is told by a 1st person narrator in present tense with the point of view of the boy. The story is written in telling, which mean we are told the story instead of it being shown. The history takes place in Australia near Queensland (p. 2 l. 44). The family is very poor and are therefore forced to live in their car. They are a part of the lower class. ”Dad showed us how to rub sand on our body instead of soap to get the dirt off.” (p. 1 l. 5) The family cannot afford a lot of things including soap, this is why dad learned his children to use sand instead of soap. “After dinner Dad makes us go to the toilet and clean our teeth in the park toilets and then we drive around for a bit. We stop the car and Dad puts Grace to sleep in the back seat and then we sit and listen to the radio for a while and then it's my turn to go to bed.” (p. 1 ll. 28-30) The little family also brush their teeth at a park toilet and sleep in the car, it’s a very clear indication, that they are homeless. The novel takes places over a couple of days and in the beginning, we are told something about what they usually do every day, this give us a reason to believe that things have been going on for a while. “Every day after school dad takes us straight to the beach” (p. 1 l. 7)
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