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Chapter 14: Wavey
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
Agnis’s shop sits tucked in a neat row of buildings close to the wharf but sheltered from the wind. Quoyle immediately likes it. Inside, Agnis, Mrs. Bangs, and Dawn Budgel work on the pieces for the Tough Baby’s dining salon. Their deadline is coming up fast. But Agnis takes a break and goes to Skipper Will’s with Quoyle for lunch. She has the stewed cod. He has the squidburger. They both have tea. While they eat, Quoyle tentatively asks Agnis if she thinks there’s something wrong with Bunny, whose behavior has always been wild (her kindergarten teacher declared she had a “personality disorder”) but which has gotten worse since Petal’s death and their move.
Agnis’s shop is close to the action of the wharf but still sheltered from the wind. It appears safe and secure, unlike the house on the Point. This in turn suggests that a good life finds balance—neither fearful of challenge nor overly exposed to despair. Quoyle, thus far in his life, has been both. His appreciation for the shop insinuates that he’s ready for something better. Bunny’s struggles suggest that Quoyle’s attempts to protect her from the truth about death, or about sadness more generally, have been insufficient.
Themes
Bunny has nightmares. She still talks about the white dog she saw in the fog the first day they arrived at Quoyle’s Point—one day she heard it scratching at the kitchen door and panicked until Quoyle locked it; another she threw away a white rock from Agnis’s garden shaped like a dog’s head and claimed that the scratch she received was a dog bite. Agnis counsels Quoyle to be patient and see what time will fix. Bunny just lost her grandparents, mother, and the only home she’d ever known. It was a lot of upheaval, and it will take Bunny time to recover. Agnis suggests that Bunny might be sensitive to things beyond normal human perception. She reminds Quoyle that Bunny, at six, is just a little girl. Agnis thinks to herself how that didn’t stop Guy—she was only six “the first time.”
The white dog that frightens Bunny exists at least partly in her head and it represents, among other things, death. It’s clear that Bunny understands that something has happened to her mother, but Quoyle’s confused half-explanations—his attempt to protect her—makes it harder, not easier, for her to understand. Agnis thus speaks with deep wisdom when she encourages Quoyle to let time go to work on Bunny’s fear and sadness. He can’t rush health. Agnis also brings up some of the superstitions that the book casts as a charming feature of traditional (perhaps even old-fashioned) Newfoundland life. And, for the first time, she hints at her own childhood trauma, implying she suffered sexual assault at Guy’s hands.
Themes
