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Chapter 14
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Past the Shallows, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Brotherhood, Loyalty, and Hardship
Addiction and Abuse
Tragedy and Blame
Father Figures and Responsibility
The Duality of Nature
Summary
Analysis
The brothers continue the process of cleaning out Granddad’s shed and Harry rides along with Joe to take a load of junk to the dump. As they pull out of the driveway, Miles sits forlornly on the porch and Harry knows that he will not go through Granddad’s belongings while they are gone because he wants to keep the house, whereas Joe is not as sentimentally attached. Aunty Jean is set on selling Granddad’s house because the family “could all do with the money.”
This passage shows the complex and varied reactions of different members of the same family toward tragedy. Whereas Joe and Harry are reluctant to express their feelings, Miles is openly upset about Granddad’s death and resentful of Aunty Jean for taking the house away from Joe. Jean, on the other hand, is consumed by bitterness, claiming her father’s house not out of sentimentality, but for the sake of earning a profit.
Themes
On the way to the dump, Joe senses that Harry is upset and assures him that he will be coming back to Bruny Island after he travels around on the boat he is building. He tells Harry that his first stop will be Samoa in the South Pacific. Suddenly, Harry has the urge to tell Joe about the afternoon he spent with George Fuller and his dog Jake. He wants to ask Joe if he knows George, since George knew Granddad.
Harry’s desire to confide in Joe reflects his older brother’s role as a fatherly confidante figure. As the oldest Curren brother, Joe knows that leaving Bruny Island will mean forfeiting the parental responsibility for his two younger brothers that has been forced upon him by circumstance.
Themes
Instead, Harry suggests to Joe that Granddad may have kept Mum’s car because “he thought he might find something.” Alarmed at this suggestion, Joe pulls over the van and asks Harry what he means, and Harry replies that maybe there had been a man in the car. Joe rationalizes that Harry suffered head trauma during the car crash that killed Mum, and that he must be talking about the paramedic at the scene of the accident.
This passage is significant in the piecing together what occurred on the night of Mum’s death. Harry, like Miles, was in the car during the accident that killed Mum. Although Miles brushes off Harry’s comments about Granddad, this revelation implies that their grandfather may have had unresolved suspicions about the accident’s circumstances.
Themes
