Previous
Chapter 28: Skater’s Chain Grip
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
Children noisily crowd Dennis and Beety’s house, and because it’s in town and has a phone, Quoyle finds himself hounded by his coworkers. This morning, Tert Card stops by to assign Quoyle to cover a boat fire and Billy Pretty calls to remind him to order a boat from Alvin Yark. Quoyle calls Diddy Shovel and learns that the smoldering boat is a cargo ship called the Rome.
From the relative isolation of the point, Quoyle jumps into the midst of a busy family existence with the younger generations of Buggits. And while it’s clearly a suboptimal arrangement, no one seems particularly bothered by it, suggesting the degree to which the Buggits and Quoyles have adopted one another.
Themes
On their soothing afternoon ride from the library to the school to pick up Bunny, Quoyle asks Wavey if she and Herry want to come when he visits Alvin Yark—her uncle, he’s learned—that weekend. She says yes. After dropping Wavey off, Quoyle heads for the harbor. But the Rome never appears.
The chaos and drama of the world—even something as exciting as a cargo ship fire—seems very far away from the quiet peace between Wavey and Quoyle. Once, he shut out the world because he couldn’t handle the drama and chaos. Now, it’s clear that he has all he needs where he is.
Themes
On Saturday, Quoyle, Wavey, Bunny, Sunshine, and Herry drive through an impenetrable fog to Nunny Bag Cove. Wavey explains that the whole settlement there burned down a few years ago. Those who had insurance pooled their payouts to make sure that those who didn’t were able to rebuild. Evvie Yark serves tea to the children in antique china cups while Quoyle and Alvin go to the boat house. Alvin says he can have a new boat finished for Quoyle by the time the ice breaks up.
The story of the Nunny Bag Cove community suggests the individual generosity of Alvin and Evvie Yark but also sets an example for how a community can—and, in the book’s view, should—care for its members. It's the antithesis in many ways to Partridge’s material success, described in an earlier chapter. He and Mercalia seem to have more money than they know what to do with, but by spending it on themselves, they don’t help grow their community.
Themes
