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Chapter 7: The Gammy Bird
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 returns to the Tickle Motel and tells Agnis that he doesn’t think he can handle the job. She’s knitting and her needles click faster and faster with her rising irritation as she tells him that he needs to get over Petal and focus on the present. She needs to get her shop established, Bunny and Sunshine need someone to look after them during the day, they all need to get the house fixed up, and Quoyle needs to get over himself and get a boat. Quoyle shrinks at the mention of the boat; he doesn’t know how to swim, and he’s scared of the water. But his aunt’s plans are already in motion—she’s found someone to watch the girls and she’s talking to a carpenter the next day.
Even as she loses patience with Quoyle, Agnis never speaks hurtfully. Her words are true rather than abusive. She neither lets Quoyle get away with giving into his fears nor mocks him for having them, and in this way, she models a healthier version of love than he’s yet known. She also makes it clear that survival in Newfoundland—or in life—requires definitive, positive action. Her implication is that Quoyle can’t wait around for things to happen to him. He needs to start to take ownership of his life now.
Themes
The next day in the office, Quoyle complains to his colleagues about the idea of moving out to the house on the Point; he says he’d rather go back to the United States than buy a boat. He also learns that Agnis’s carpenter, Dennis Buggit, is Jack’s estranged son. Neither Nutbeem nor Billy Pretty can understand Quoyle’s fear of boats. In fact, Nutbeem sailed to Newfoundland in a boat he built himself, the Borogrove.
Quoyle’s fear of boats maps onto a more general fear of the unknown in this chapter. Billy Pretty grew up on the water in Newfoundland, so it’s not a surprise that he like boats. The revelation about Dennis’s connection to Jack lets readers know that the social and family politics in the area are intense and well-known to insiders—they’re something Quoyle will have to learn about as he settles in.
Themes
While Nutbeem rhapsodizes about boats, Card answers the phone. It’s Jack, calling to say that he’s home with an earache—an excuse the newspapermen haven’t heard before, and they’ve heard many. Someone else calls to report that a gas station in Four Hands Cover has caught fire; Card assigns Nutbeem to cover that story and to make sure he gets good pictures. Then, Card reminds Quoyle that he needs to go down to the harbormaster’s office that afternoon to get the information for the shipping news—the harbormaster won’t give it out over the phone.
Jack has now called in twice. Like Quoyle, readers aren’t quite in the know, although it’s implied that he’s out fishing—the thing he just described to Quoyle as his greatest love in life. Quoyle’s inability to make that leap shows how limited his imagination has been by living the small and unhappy life he had in New York. In fact, Quoyle is still waiting around for orders from on high, like Tert’s command to get down to the harbormaster.
Themes
