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Chapter 8: A Slippery Hitch
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 makes his way down Wharf Road and into the office of harbormaster Diddy Shovel. When Quoyle asks for the shipping news, Shovel hands him a notebook listing arrivals and another listing departures. There’s a computer system, too, but storms take out the power so frequently that Shovel says it’s better to know how to read the books. Then he offers Quoyle some tea.
Diddy Shovel’s office exemplifies the attitude the book takes towards modernity. Modern technologies, like the computer, undoubtedly make life easier in some ways. But they all have their own weaknesses (such as being vulnerable to power outages). Diddy employs both old (paper and pen) and new technologies in tandem for the best effect.
Themes
Over their hot tea, Shovel tells Quoyle about his life at sea—he started on his uncle’s boat at 13 and later served in the Merchant Navy during World War II. He’s been harbormaster for 30 years, since 1963. Then, Shovel directs Quoyle’s attention to some of the more interesting ships in the harbor, like sister vessels Polar Grinder and Arctic Incisor. They’re refrigerated ships that carry seafood to distant ports.
Like Billy Pretty, Jack Buggit, and most other Newfoundlanders, Diddy has spent nearly as much of his life on the sea as on land. And he offers Quoyle a new perspective. Each ship in the harbor is an individual, with an interesting story to tell. Quoyle finds himself fascinated despite his fears.
Themes
Shovel tells Quoyle that the Polar Grinder is what came between Jack and Dennis Buggit. Jack believes that the sea has a grudge against Buggits, so he forbade his children from going to sea. But none of them listened. The oldest boy, Jesson, became a fisherman. He drowned. When Dennis became a carpenter, Jack thought he would be safe, but then Dennis signed on as ship’s carpenter with the Polar Grinder. He sailed to New York and Europe and Japan. But then in February, they got caught in a bad storm and the high seas cracked the ship in half. Twenty-seven men died. Dennis and others—and the ship—survived, but barely.
The story of the Polar Grinder and of Dennis and Jesson reminds readers of how precarious life can be on the sea. Quoyle’s fear of the water isn’t irrational, but it is limiting. Besides, as his own life has so recently reminded him, everyone will die eventually, regardless of whether they live a risky life or not. The long description of the Polar Grinder also clearly fascinates Quoyle, and it plants the seeds for his future projects at the Gammy Bird.
Themes
The telephone pulls Shovel away from Quoyle, and when Shovel hangs up, he excuses himself to attend to business. Quoyle walks along the wharf, trying but failing to get another glimpse of the Polar Grinder through the misty rain. Then he spots a little speedboat for sale for $100. It seems too good to be true, but when the seller drops the price to $50, Quoyle figures he hasn’t got anything to lose. He buys it, rents a trailer, and drags it back to the Gammy Bird office. On his way, he passes the walking woman (Wavey) again. She waves.
It's a mark of how fascinating he found Diddy’s story of the Polar Grinder that Quoyle is inspired to buy a boat directly afterwards. Despite his reticence, this is the first sign that something of his ancestors’ seafaring blood might run through his veins. Importantly, it’s the first independent decision readers have seen him make in the book. It seems that he’s no longer entirely willing to let circumstances dictate his life for him.
Themes
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While Quoyle types up the shipping news, Billy Pretty and Jack Buggit return from the latest car accident—a really gory one involving a moose. Quoyle can hear them outside, discussing his boat. When they come in, Jack and Billy immediately lay into him for buying a barely seaworthy “shitboat.” Billy tells Quoyle to head to Nunny Bag Cove and ask Alvin Yark to build him a proper boat instead.
The moose-vehicular accident adds local color—it’s yet another reminder of how different Newfoundland is from most other places—but it’s also a timely reminder that the thing Quoyle really fears (death) lurks everywhere. He might be more afraid of the water, but it’s not necessarily more dangerous than a thousand things on land.
Themes
