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Chapter 15: The Upholstery Shop
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
Quoyle’s favorite part of the day is picking up Bunny and Sunshine from Dennis and Beety’s house. He loves the way Bunny comes crashing into him for a hug. He loves the warm house and the smell of Beety’s fresh bread and the feeling of family. He secretly wishes Dennis and Beety were his parents, even though they’re younger than him.
Dennis and Beety are quickly becoming Quoyle’s friends, but he’s accustomed to his friends (like Partridge earlier) taking on quasi-parental roles for him. This is in part because he’s so starved for real affection and in part because he’s not yet ready to face his fears, make decisions, or take adult responsibility for his life.
Themes
On this night, while Beety serves the children dishes of canned apricots, Dennis tells Quoyle about a friend who drove into a ditch up on Bone Hill and landed in the hospital with a broken neck. It’s incredible to Dennis that this happened, especially after the man had survived being attacked by an octopus while fishing eight or nine years earlier. It’s like he was touched by fate, Dennis says. Some people can see the strings of fate at work, like Jack, who intuitively knew when Jesson had died at sea.
The story about Dennis’s friend’s accident plays into Quoyle’s fear of car accidents, and it’s an uncomfortable reminder that nothing in life is guaranteed. And the story about the octopus doesn’t help Quoyle’s fear of the water. But it does illustrate the resilience of Newfoundlanders—despite the dangers they face, they keep on going. Moreover, it insists that the supernatural forces Agnis mentioned in the previous chapter are real.
Themes
While Dennis talks, Skipper Alfred joins the company around the table. He knows the Quoyles by reputation—from what he’s heard, they were a rough bunch back in the day—and he heard about Bunny’s attempt to help with the roofing project. He has brought the little “carpenter maid” a brass ruling square. Bunny loves it. Quoyle hurries his children to the car, anxious lest they hear more crazy stories, and drives them home. He makes sure the heavy brass square is safely on the floor in case they hit a pothole on the drive, and it goes flying through the air.
Skipper Alfred isn’t the first—or the last—person to point out the Quoyles’ troublesome past. Yet, the community welcomes Quoyle into their midst. The past has an inescapable influence on the present, but it only defines those who cling to it. Quoyle is still clinging—he’s still a little obsessed with Petal, he still clearly wants the approval of parental figures, and he’s still terrified of car accidents—but already, by coming to Newfoundland, he’s starting to release his grasp on his own past.
Themes
