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Chapter 20
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
After a day of work on the boat, Miles goes to Granddad’s house. The boys’ sorting has left the house nearly empty, but Miles notices personalized signs of wear that their family has left behind—scratched floorboards, stains, and Harry’s beach specimens lining the windowsills. Joe had told Harry to choose three “treasures” for the boat, but Harry had been unable to part with any of them.
Miles’s observation of the marks and wear around his grandfather’s house have significance beyond his grief over Granddad. They represent the innocent times before tragedy struck the Currens, reminding Miles of the functional family he used to have before it was fragmented by resentment, bitterness, and blame.
Themes
Miles notices the notches carved into the kitchen door that had marked the growth of Mum, Aunty Jean, Miles, and his brothers. He goes out to Granddad’s workshop and, seeing the supple wood collected in the corner, remembers the furniture that Granddad used to carve. Miles resolves to become a craftsman who makes beautiful furniture rather than a carpenter who builds houses and boat fixtures like Joe.
Miles mourns Granddad not merely because he was a loving presence in his life, but because his grandfather was his primary role model. It is clear that Miles idolized Granddad’s talents and that he now lacks a male figure in his life to look up to and emulate.
Themes
Miles has a flashback to collecting wood with Granddad before he died. As they loaded timber into the back of his Granddad’s truck, he told Miles about the huon pine trees that “used to be everywhere” when he was young, and Miles thought how the huge trees would never grow back the same way. Miles spotted a small piece of celery top wood that he planned to sculpt as a good luck token for Joe’s boat. Back in the present, Miles realizes that whoever buys Granddad’s house will probably think that the lumber in the workshop is just firewood.
Again, Granddad is portrayed as a wise and competent paternal figure for Miles. Granddad’s childhood memories of the dense huon forests on Bruny Island parallel Miles’s own memories of his grandfather and the rest of the family. Just as pine trees have dwindled and will never grow back the same way, so too has the Curren family been irreparably diminished by tragedy.
Themes
