The Ocean and Life’s Mysteries Theme Analysis

Throughout his life, Abel Jackson is curious about the ocean. He often wonders what fish think and remember since they can’t communicate through human language. Sometimes, Abel believes that if his friend Blueback—a blue groper fish—could speak, he could reveal all “the secrets of the sea.” Abel also thinks of the ocean as a puzzle he wants to solve. This sense of mystery surrounding the ocean motivates Abel to become a marine biologist. However, even as a scientist equipped with years of study and advanced technology, Abel still hasn’t learned “the language of the sea.” The workings of the world are too complex—or maybe too simple and fundamental—to be discovered through scientific inquiry. The ocean seems to hold profound truths that remain just out of reach.

Abel believes his mother has achieved some deeper understanding of the ocean in her life “by staying put, by watching and listening. Feeling things.” By becoming “part of the bay,” Dora Jackson is able to know Longboat Bay intimately. In this way, Blueback suggests that a person can understand the ocean on some level, even if they can’t articulate or analyze that knowledge. However, Abel also comes to believe that all the mysteries of the ocean can’t be fully grasped until after death. As an adult, Abel decides he must wait to reach the end of his life to know the ocean’s secrets, and he feels content in the meantime to “let the sea be itself.” Through Abel’s pondering about life, death, and the ocean, Blueback suggests that some mysteries of the ocean can’t be discovered in life because they’re intertwined with the very mysteries of life (and death) itself. Thus, when Abel accepts that he can’t figure out all the mysteries of the ocean, he simultaneously comes to terms with the fact that he can’t unravel the mysteries of life and death either. Just as he accepts the sea’s enigmatic nature, Abel allows life to unfold as it will, enjoys his time in the world, and grows comfortable with the unknowable. By depicting Abel’s changing attitude toward nature’s and life’s mysteries, the novel illustrates life as a whole as a journey of learning how to be at peace with uncertainty.