ISSN: 2226-6348
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According to Tim Winton’s works, the feeling of isolation and loneliness is shown as a direct mirror of the prevailing sentiment in Australian culture at the time, which was characterized by the growth of commercial and industrial inclinations. The study attempts to clarify this issue in Winton's novel Shallows (1984), which is a prominent selection. Tim Winton presents us with delicate descriptions of various people’s loneliness. This study explores the characters’ eccentric behavior and the theme of loneliness in the novel Shallows by famous Australian writer Tim Winton. The purpose of this study is twofold: first, to discover to what extent the theme of loneliness is present in Tim Winton’s Shallows, and second, to categorize this loneliness into three distinct types. The first is spiritual loneliness, a loneliness caused by having fallen out of the grace of God. The second is social loneliness, a loneliness brought about by the lack of human companionship. The third is loneliness provoked by a sense of personal failure. This article will reveal the three types and several protagonists’ solutions to loneliness through Fromm’s Psychoanalysis (1965), helping readers understand some of the characters’ eccentric behaviors in the text while pointing out the real love and intimacy with nature, as well as building a faith that can validly solve the problem of loneliness.
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(Zhu & Muhammad, 2023)
Zhu, Q., & Muhammad, S. H. (2023). Theme of Loneliness in Tim Winton’s Shallows: A Psychological Study. International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development, 12(4), 1461–1476.
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