Essay Questions

What is the distinction between the Lamb family and the Pickle family?

The author provides a sharp contrast between the Lamb and the Pickles family. The one common thing between these two families is poverty. However, the Lamb family is smarter and unified, unlike the Pickle's family that is disloyal and heavily rely on betting and drinking liquor. The Lamb family has rented a small space from the Pickles family which it partly uses for business. The Lamb family uses profit proceeds to pay rent and do other investments. As the Lamb family prospers, the Pickles family continues to languish in poverty. Therefore, the author is trying to educate the reader on the significance of working smart in life.

What is the emblematic connotation of the Pickle Family’s house?

The author is tactical in the way he depicts discipline and disorder in his book. The two families live in the same house but their behavior and ambitions are different. The Lamb family is disciplined and does its things in an orderly manner while the Pickles family is characterized by chaos. The Pickles family is disorderly majorly because it inherits the house but the Lamb's family knows that it is on a rented premise, so it has to work hard and pay the rent without straining. Therefore, the Pickle family's house represents two contradictory faces of two families living under the same roof.

How does the theme of jealous manifest itself in the Cloudstreet?

The members of the Pickles family do not discover the worth of their house until they rent part of it to the Lamb family. The Lamb family uses part of the rented space to open a grocery store which helps the family to get rich very fast. The members of the Lamb family are very hardworking and they work in harmony. As a result, the Pickles’ family members are envious of the success of their neighbors and they are thinking that the business should be theirs.