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Chapter 10: The Voyage of Nutbeem
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Shipping News, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Love and Family
Redemption, Courage, and Happiness
Life and Death
Resilience and Survival
Modernity
Summary
Analysis
The family moves into the house a few weekends later, Agnis arriving on Friday in her brand-new blue pickup truck and Quoyle, Bunny, and Sunshine following the next morning in the station wagon. Before they arrive, Agnis disposes of Guy’s ashes by unceremoniously tipping them into the outhouse hole.
Agnis’s action suggests hatred rather than affection for her half-brother, although readers will have to wait to find out the reason. Family is important to Agnis, but it’s clearly not always perfect.
Themes
When Quoyle, Bunny, and Sunshine arrive, Bunny is upset to find that the house is still green. Quoyle promises they can repaint it someday, after it’s fixed—at that moment, Dennis is working on the roof. Quoyle, Agnis, and the girls work on small renovation tasks inside during the afternoon. After dinner, Agnis wants to play cards and she’s frustrated when no one else is interested.
Bunny instinctively dislikes the house, and her discomfort adds to the book’s gradually building sense that the past can be dangerous. This in turn hints that the family’s future may ultimately lie somewhere else.
Themes
Quoyle wakes up early the next morning and stumbles outside into the unfamiliar grey Newfoundland light. On the threshold, he finds three knotted bundles of grass. He follows a path through the brush down to the shore, failing to notice that some of the tree branches lining the trail have been twisted into knots, too. Parts of it are strewn with trash, but when he gets close enough to the water, he hears a sound and turns to see a minke whale frolicking in the smooth water of the bay. Turning again, Quoyle discovers an odd object wedged in a cracked rock. It’s a memorial pin woven of human hair. In revulsion, he throws it away.
Quoyle doesn’t pay much attention to the knots on the doorstep or in the trees along the path, but readers should. They’re clearly intentional, but it’s not clear if they’re a sign of welcome or of warning. They suggest forces at work that Quoyle doesn’t see or understand. The path becomes a metaphor for life: there are beautiful and wild things like the whale, but also a lot of trash that a person has to deal with. And the pin is a memento mori—a reminder of Quoyle’s (and everyone else’s) mortality. But he’s not yet ready to face that hard truth.
Themes
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Quoyle returns to the house, full of ideas for how he can fix up the path and make his own little place to sit by the water. Agnis has bad news: there’s a storm coming, but Dennis won’t be able to get out and finish the roof before it arrives. Quoyle will have to finish the job. The thought of climbing up to the perilously pitched roof terrifies Quoyle, but he does it anyway. After a little while, he realizes it’s not as bad as he fears. Soon, he gets into the rhythm of the work. But then he hears Bunny’s voice and turns to find her at the top of the ladder, clutching a child-sized hammer. In a low voice, he tells her to stay still as he frantically inches toward her, clutches her up in his arms, and descends the ladder with her to solid ground. As he does, the image of her falling to her death replays itself over and over in his mind.
Up until this moment, Quoyle has experienced Newfoundland as a profoundly alien and rather unwelcoming place. But after being there for a while, he begins to feel the pull of the sea on his heart. Something in him—something tied to his seafaring ancestors—seems to be waking up. And for the first time, he feels like he may have found a place where he can fit in. But it’s going to require him to face his fears. This chapter makes it clear that Quoyle’s superficial fears all stem from his inability (at least thus far) to acknowledge and accept the scariest truth of all: everyone is mortal, and everything is fleeting.
Themes
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