Narrator and point of view

The short story “Neighbours” by Tim Winton is told from the perspective of a third-person narrator. 

The narrator appears to be limited to the couple’s perspective and only shares how other characters might be feeling based on their body language or actions. For example, the narrator notes “The Macedonians raised eyebrows at the late hour at which the newcomers rose in the mornings. The young man sensed their disapproval at his staying home to write his thesis while his wife worked”. This shows that the husband notices the neighbors’ raised eyebrows and disapproval, which makes him aware that the neighbors find the couple just as strange as the couple finds them. On the other hand, it should be noted that we only have the husband’s interpretation of the neighbors’ beha...