Sel Character Analysis in Only the Animals

The protagonist and narrator of “Somewhere Along the Line the Pearl Would Be Handed to Me,” Sel is a blue mussel who grows up in Hudson Bay. Sel has few defining characteristics, aside from his desire to have new adventures and his intense love of his friend Muss. When Muss arrives in Hudson Bay with stories of the continental U.S. and specifically San Francisco, Sel feels he has no choice but to follow his friend back across the country. Sel is immediately taken with Muss’s insistence that life has no meaning; people (or mussels) should just enjoy it to the greatest extent they can. His one desire is to hear the native pearly mussels of the central U.S. tell their stories, so he’s distraught when he discovers that all the pearly mussels are dead. Though Sel isn’t as interested in sex as Muss, he nevertheless has several sexual encounters with female mussels over the course of his journey. However, once the mussels engage in a mass spawning in Pearl Harbor, he realizes the consequences of spawning—the mussels are enraged and distraught when they realize they’ve fathered a generation of young mussels who believe that life should have meaning. Sel dies during the bombing of Pearl Harbor when his shell breaks, making it impossible for him to close his shell and protect himself from the hot water.

Sel Quotes in Only the Animals

The Only the Animals quotes below are all either spoken by Sel or refer to Sel. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

The Interconnectedness of Humans and Animals Theme Icon

Muss said [the zebra mussels] were halfway to covering the whole bottom of the lakes too, that there was not a single native mussel left to tell us stories.

Related Characters: Sel (speaker), Muss, Gallos

Page Number and Citation: 103

Explanation and Analysis:

Sel Character Timeline in Only the Animals

The timeline below shows where the character Sel appears in Only the Animals. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

The mussel Sel first meets Muss after he decides that everything is dead. Sel’s friend Gallos introduces him... (full context)

...and Gallos talk for 8 or 10 hours straight. Gallos laps up everything Muss says. Sel listens but usually says nothing when they sit down for chats. Muss and Gallos talk... (full context)

Spring arrives. As it gets warmer, Sel knows he has to follow Muss across the country to see how he grew up.... (full context)

Muss, Gallos, and Sel hitch a ride on a cargo ship. Muss says they have to move quickly across... (full context)

...the bottom of the lakes and there are no native mussels left. At the party, Sel asks some girls about the native pearly mussels. The girls close their shells, but Sel... (full context)

...Muss and his young friends shouldn’t take chances. Muss howls with grief, so Gallos and Sel lead him out into the water and avoid the seagulls at night. (full context)

...what they’re looking for. There’s already a community of mussels on the side, so the Sel and his companions decide to join. The toxic stuff the humans put on the hull... (full context)

Muss and Gallos aren’t certain about attaching to a U.S. Navy vessel, but Sel doesn’t care. He just wants to be moving somewhere interesting. So when the battleship starts... (full context)

Since Sel and his friends are in the middle of the hull, they don’t have a hard... (full context)

The girl disappears one day when Muss and Sel get into a fight over the nature of reality. Bluey gets sad and Gallos gets... (full context)

...insists it’s wrong to starve another creature. Both Muss and Gallos support the cause, but Sel doesn’t know what he feels. He stays put while Muss and Gallos join the hunt,... (full context)

Another girl comes along to distract Sel. They become physically intimate, but Sel is too sad to continue. After a while, she... (full context)

In the morning, the girl tells Sel to stay hungry. He’s onto something, living so spontaneously. She assures him that he’ll get... (full context)

...misses sharing food with his family and knowing he can latch onto something for good. Sel, Muss, and Gallos don’t understand Bluey’s feelings, but they sadly let him go. After Bluey’s... (full context)

Sel, Gallos, and Muss talk about nothingness. Muss insists they turn bright orange when they’re cooked.... (full context)

...months, though, those drifters settle down as juveniles amongst the other mussels. It dawns on Sel, Muss, and Gallos that they’ve wasted their freedom—now, they’re the elders in the colony. The... (full context)

Then, Muss and Sel meet the lobster. The mussels are frightened at first, but once they start talking, they... (full context)

One morning, the lobster gives Sel and Muss a speck of something that will help them “see beyond the here and... (full context)

Muss goes silent, Sel’s drug trip becomes grayscale, and the lobster sings something sad as church bells ring on... (full context)

Sel thinks they should embrace this moment of collapse, but they’re too freaked out. A man... (full context)

Sel panics, but calms down as he thinks of the sunset over the Hudson River. He... (full context)

Sel Character Analysis

Sel Quotes in Only the Animals

Somewhere Along the Line the Pearl Would Be Handed to Me: Soul of Mussel Quotes

Sel Character Timeline in Only the Animals