The Ocean Symbol Analysis

The ocean symbolizes the peace and tranquility that Demon hopes to cultivate in his own mind. Perhaps paradoxically, Demon finds that tranquility when he stops envisioning it as a specific destination and starts embracing his own journey. Demon describes the ocean as a place that is free from the chaos that characterizes his day-to-day life, and this is why he’s so drawn to it. Throughout the novel, he makes various attempts to reach the ocean and, by extension, to find peace. However, he repeatedly encounters obstacles along the way.

In particular, his childhood trauma and ongoing struggles with addiction continue to plague him, standing in the way of his goal  to make his mind resemble the tranquility of the ocean. The ocean can also be understood, then, as a symbol of the tranquility and peace that eludes Demon when he turns to destructive outlets to find instant  relief. At various points, Demon uses drugs to find respite from the disorder of his life. While those drugs give Demon a temporary feeling of the peace he’s looking for, they ultimately lead to addiction and more “hectic nonsense.” At this point in his life, Demon’s suffering is so great that he is more concerned with dulling his pain than working through it. In other words, he wants to reach the peace and tranquility of this ocean but cannot yet undertake (or even acknowledge) the long and arduous journey it will take to get there.

After he becomes sober, Demon begins to find ways to make his own mind take on the tranquility of the ocean. At the end of the novel, Demon and Angus make one last trip to try and reach the sea. Demon says, “The trip itself, just getting there, possibly the best part of my life so far.” Instead of thinking of the ocean as the ultimate destination, Demon chooses to embrace the journey it takes to get to the ocean rather than that destination itself, a change in mentality that has allowed Demon to find the peace and tranquility he has searched for all along.