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The Turning
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Turning, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Trauma and Memory
Family, Violence, and Love
Addiction
Belonging and Escape
Regret and Forgiveness
Summary
Analysis
Two brothers, Frank and Max, walk along the beach at sunset, following their father and his friends. Ten-year-old Max, the older brother, is able to converse with the men, while Frank is too young to feel comfortable with them. Frank also misses his mother, who has sent them to their father for two weeks. The men are going fishing, setting up a lamp and wading out to the reef. Frank and Max are too young to join them, so their father allows them to play in the sand dunes along the beach.
This story presents Max— Raelene’s husband—and his brother Frank in childhood, placing this chapter at least a decade and a half before “The Turning.”
Themes
Max leads the way up into the dunes, bringing along a box of matches. Max is domineering and unpredictable, and Frank joins him only with caution. Once they reach the top of a ridge of dunes, Max reveals his plan: to fart on the burning matches and produce a “blue flame.” After several unsuccessful attempts, Max instructs Frank to hold the flame. Shaking with premature laughter, Frank accidentally burns Max’s anus. Max chases Frank down through the dunes in anger. As he runs, Max reflects on their relationship: though Max is stronger than he is, Frank is much faster, a quality which wins him favor in sports and with his mother and induces jealousy in his brother.
While still very much a child, Max already possesses a cruel streak, bullying the weaker and more sensitive Frank. The story also suggests, however, that their mother favors Frank, leaving Max with a sense of resentment toward Frank.
Themes
Ultimately, Frank’s fear of Max overtakes him before his physical exhaustion. Max, however, is too winded to hit Frank. Frank apologizes. The sensation of sand in his shorts reminds Frank of when he defecated in his pants at school and Max joined the other kids in mocking him. To Frank’s surprise, Max seems to quickly forgive him, suggesting they dig a tunnel or hole instead. Quicky digging, they make a hole big enough to fit the upper half of one’s body in. After Max tests it, Frank goes in. Though the hole is quiet and peaceful, a stomping alerts Frank to the fact that Max is jumping overhead, burying him in the sand. Frank panics but is able to dig himself out, and walks back to the beach in a daze, crying. As he reaches Frank's father, it is clear he has defecated in his pants again and he stumbles back, apologizing.
Max’s bullying of Frank fits into a pattern wherein Max deliberately plays off Frank’s insecurities, demonstrating his capacity to target others’ weaknesses. While Max clearly does not think much of how he makes Frank feel beyond the sense of power he gets from bullying him, his actions clearly have an impact on Frank beyond mere embarrassment, traumatizing his younger brother in ways that likely will continue to affect him later in life.
Themes
