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Chapter 9
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Blueback, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Nature, Belonging, and Conservation
Family and Love
Greed and Environmental Destruction
The Ocean and Life’s Mysteries
Time, Change, and Continuity
Summary
Analysis
Abel graduates from high school and comes back to Longboat Bay. One day, he wakes up to find the beach covered in dead pilchards. He and his mother can’t understand what happened to the fish, since there’s no obvious cause of their deaths. Abel and his mother use the fish as fertilizer for their gardens.
As time passes and Abel gets older, Longboat Bay changes too. Unfortunately, the bay undergoes a distressing and perplexing change that seems to negatively affect the fish. Exactly what’s happening to the pilchards, however, is a mystery, reminding Abel of how much he doesn’t know and can’t understand about the ocean.
Themes
Abel goes diving, plays with Blueback, and observes that the reef looks normal. He wishes Blueback could talk so the fish could describe what was wrong with the sea. Then he wonders if Blueback is old enough to remember Abel’s parents as kids, and if his father ever met Blueback. Abel thinks Blueback might know all about his father and “the secrets of the sea.” Later, Abel’s mother remarks that Abel looks just like his father, and Abel realizes he has his father’s face.
Abel can’t figure out what’s wrong with the sea on his own. Once again, he longs to know what insights into the ocean fish might have. Abel also wonders—not for the first time—if Blueback somehow knows not only the secrets of the ocean but also the secrets of the dead. In Abel’s mind, the ocean is linked to death, especially when it comes to his father, because both are equally mysterious to Abel. Although Abel’s father is dead, the story hints that Abel’s father lives on through Abel. In this way, Abel’s father isn’t truly gone. Rather, his life carries on in new forms.
Themes
Abel and his mother find out that pilchards are dying in other places too, not just Longboat Bay. Abel’s mother says the sea is sick. Abel thinks of the ocean as a mysterious puzzle he wants to solve.
That the sea has inexplicably become sick reignites Abel’s curiosity about the ocean. Just as he did when he was younger, Abel desires to learn the sea’s mysteries. He wants to discover everything about the sea that is currently unknown to him so he can finally understand how the ocean works on a deeper level.
Themes
