Breath

by

Tim Winton

Themes and Colors
Ordinary vs. Extraordinary Theme Icon
Risk, Fear, and Ecstasy Theme Icon
Time, Nostalgia, and Historical Change Theme Icon
Friendship, Mentorship, and Coming of Age Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Breath, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Risk, Fear, and Ecstasy Theme Icon

Breath probes the limits of peril to which people will subject themselves in search of an ecstatic thrill. Its principal characters are united by a certainty that only when one is closest to death does one feel truly alive. From surfing giant waves to freestyle ski jumping to

, the element of fear is central to the ecstasy these life-threatening experiences provide. While Bruce is relatively open about his anxieties about risky situations, Loonie looks with contempt on any acknowledgment of fear. Sando chastises Loonie, offering the apparently enlightened, mature perspective that fear is common to all and that there’s no shame in admitting it—in fact, the urge to face and conquer fear has driven humankind to its greatest heights.

The addictive aspect of this mentality, however, is plain: from his first time just watching people surf, Bruce is beyond any “threat” or “appeal to reason.” Immediately, he is “hooked.” Like his companions, he has a “classical addictive personality,” which requires greater and greater thrills to be satiated. For Bruce, Loonie, and Sando, this manifests in seeking out increasingly risky waves. Eva, meanwhile, turns to autoerotic asphyxiation (being choked during sex to produce an adrenaline rush and enhanced pleasure) because, ever since the last time she was able to ski, she “miss[es] being afraid.” The existential significance Sando attributes to such experiences can quickly mutate into simple adrenaline addiction: in the long bouts between daredevil surf outings, Bruce cannot find pleasure in anything, no matter how hard he tries. As an adult, he takes to electrically shocking himself in his kitchen, saying, “It hurt like hell. But it was something I could feel.” Extreme risk becomes just another avenue to manipulating one’s brain chemistry. Ultimately, the novel suggests that thrill-seekers’ exploitation of their own biologically hardwired fear responses does not equal facing their actual fears, and it can even be a way of running from them. To teenage Bruce and Loonie, Sando’s extreme surfing is a masterful conquering of fear, but Eva can tell that he’s still doing it to run from his real dread: growing old. The real risk, which Sando and, later, Bruce take on, is to give up the daredevil recklessness of youth and try to make peace with the world they’ve avoided facing.

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Risk, Fear, and Ecstasy ThemeTracker

The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Risk, Fear, and Ecstasy appears in each chapter of Breath. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Risk, Fear, and Ecstasy Quotes in Breath

Below you will find the important quotes in Breath related to the theme of Risk, Fear, and Ecstasy.
Pages 1-37 Quotes

That was the first of many such days and we were friends and rivals from then on. It was the beginning of something. We scared people, pushing each other harder and further until often as not we scared ourselves.

Related Characters: Bruce (speaker), Loonie
Page Number: 16
Explanation and Analysis:

I leant across the wall of upstanding water and the board came with me as though it was part of my body and mind. The blur of spray. The billion shards of light. I remember the solitary watching figure on the beach and the flash of Loonie’s smile as I flew by; I was intoxicated. And though I’ve lived to be an old man with my own share of happiness for all the mess I made, I still judge every joyous moment, every victory and revelation against those few seconds of living.

Related Characters: Bruce (speaker), Loonie
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis:
Pages 37-78 Quotes

More than once since then I’ve wondered whether the life-threatening high jinks that Loonie and I and Sando and Eva got up to in the years of my adolescence were anything more than a rebellion against the monotony of drawing breath.

Related Characters: Bruce (speaker), Loonie , Sando, Eva
Related Symbols: Breath
Page Number: 43
Explanation and Analysis:

Nothing would have made me own up to this at the time but I actually liked being in school. There was a soothing dullness in the classroom, a calm in which part of me thrived. Could be it was the orderly home I grew up in, the safety of always knowing what came next.

Related Characters: Bruce (speaker), Loonie , Bruce’s Father , Bruce’s Mother
Page Number: 55
Explanation and Analysis:

That eye, said Loonie, was like a fuckin hole in the universe.

It was as close as he got to poetry. I envied him the moment and the story that went with it.

Related Characters: Bruce (speaker), Loonie (speaker)
Page Number: 76
Explanation and Analysis:
Pages 78-118 Quotes

I am chicken, I said.

Oh, fuck, said Sando. Everyone’s a chicken. That’s why we do this silly shit.

You reckon?

Yeah, to face it down, mate. To feel it, eat it. And shit it out with a big hallelujah.

He laughed. And I laughed because he did, to hide my fear.

Related Characters: Bruce (speaker), Sando (speaker), Loonie , Eva
Page Number: 90
Explanation and Analysis:

I shat meself, I said. I took the worst floggin. I freaked.

But he did the deed, said Sando. Made himself a little bit of history.

It took me a moment to absorb what he’d said. For if Sando was the first to have ridden Old Smoky, then I was surely the youngest. I could see Loonie thinking it through right there in front of me. He flapped the soggy hems of his jeans. The gesture was nonchalant, but I knew him better than that.

Your time’ll come, said Sando.

Related Characters: Bruce (speaker), Sando (speaker), Loonie
Page Number: 100-101
Explanation and Analysis:

For the past few months I’d been an outrider, a trailblazer, and the excitement and strangeness of it had changed me. There was such an intoxicating power to be had from doing things that no one else dared try. But once we started talking about the Nautilus I got the creeping sense that I’d begun something I didn’t know how to finish.

Related Characters: Bruce (speaker)
Page Number: 117-118
Explanation and Analysis:
Pages 118-161 Quotes

I had the sudden and perilous urge to touch her. I wanted to feel her ruined knee and I didn’t know why. I reached out.

Related Characters: Bruce (speaker), Eva, Margaret Myers
Page Number: 139
Explanation and Analysis:
Pages 161-202 Quotes

When I looked at girls now I compared them to Eva – the shape of their legs, the skinniness of their arms, the way they sheltered their breasts with their shoulders. Their perfumes smelt sugary as cordial. I hated all their rattly plastic bangles, and the way they plastered their zits with prosthetic-pink goo and chewed their lips when they thought no one was looking. Unless every single one of them was lying, they were all going out with older blokes, guys with cars and jobs, men who liked their peroxided fringes and bought them stuff. They suddenly looked so … ordinary.

Related Characters: Bruce (speaker), Eva
Page Number: 167
Explanation and Analysis:

I understand you, Pikelet. And I understand Sando. But he’s never had anything precious taken away.

Eva —

But you, she said taking my hand. You’re different. I can see it in your face. You’ve got this look. Like you’re expecting to lose something – everything – every moment.

Related Characters: Bruce (speaker), Eva (speaker)
Page Number: 189
Explanation and Analysis:

Man, what a disappointment he turned out to be.

I spose.

Mate, I thought he was the real deal, y’know? The man not-ordinary.

Maybe ordinary’s not so bad, I offered.

Related Characters: Bruce (speaker), Sando (speaker), Loonie
Page Number: 200
Explanation and Analysis:
Pages 203-218 Quotes

There are nights like last night when you’re always going to be too late, where you’re just holding people’s hands. I tried not to take it personally but it set me back, that call-out to the burbs. Just a rush of wind from the past, like a window momentarily slid aside. I know the difference between teenage suicide and a fatal abundance of confidence. I know what a boy looks like when he’s strangled himself for fun.

I blow the didj until it hurts, until my lips are numb, until some old lady across the way gives me the finger.

Related Characters: Bruce (speaker)
Related Symbols: Breath
Page Number: 216
Explanation and Analysis: