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Chapter 1
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
On the first day of his winter break from school, Miles prepares to man his family’s fishing boat, Lady Ida, alone for the first time while Dad and his two fishermen, Martin and Jeff, dive for abalone. Miles has grown old enough to follow in his older brother Joe’s footsteps and help out in the aftermath of his Uncle Nick’s death. Miles and the men pile into a dinghy boat and venture off to Lady Ida.
Miles, forced to work on the boat rather than enjoy his vacation, is beginning his initiation into manhood against his will. The death of Uncle Nick has clearly had a deep impact on the structure of the Curren family, as Miles is forced to surrender the freedom and childhood innocence a school break usually fosters in order to take on an adult role in his uncle’s place.
Themes
The dinghy reaches the point where Miles believes Uncle Nick must have drowned. He recalls the night his uncle died, remembering that Nick was worried about the then-new fishing boat during the winter swell. One especially dark night, Dad grew frustrated with Nick’s fretting and told him to either check the boat’s mooring or stop talking about the boat. Uncle Nick went out to check on the boat and presumably drowned. No traces of his body or clothing were ever found. The night Uncle Nick died was also the night of “the crash” when “everything changed,” causing nearly everyone in town to forget about his disappearance. Dad, however, never forgave himself for Nick’s death.
This passage reveals the tragic circumstances of Uncle Nick’s death as well as the self-blame Dad feels surrounding the loss. The water is portrayed as a dark, sinister force that took Nick away before his natural time, perhaps explaining Harry’s awe and trepidation toward the ocean’s power in the first chapter. “The crash” that Miles remembers happening on the same night Uncle Nick drowned is an unexplained detail that foreshadows further mysterious circumstances at play in Nick’s death.
Themes
Martin encourages Miles as the young man prepares to steer the fishing boat. Miles watches the sun rise over the island and notices how angry and sinister the current looks as it surges into the hidden, menacing rocks below the water’s surface. He muses that the large Bruny Hazards rocks may be former islands worn away by the elements. Reflecting on the mysteries of nature, Miles believes that the water is inherently untrustworthy, and that one can only learn about it through direct experience and intuition.
There is a fatherly element to Martin’s encouragement, implying that Miles may have a closer relationship with the fisherman than with Dad, who is essentially forcing Miles to work on the boat against his will. Miles’s skepticism toward the water’s danger suggests that fishermen on Bruny Island have had to develop an acute awareness of nature’s brutal potential in order to survive. His frank awareness of this reality despite his inexperience makes sense, given that his uncle drowned to death.
Themes
