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Chapter 9: The Mooring 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 returns to the hotel to learn that Warren the dog died during the day. Agnis dropped Bunny and Sunshine off at Dennis and Beety Buggit’s so she could take care of the dog’s body. The mention of Dennis reminds Quoyle to ask what he told Agnis about fixing up the house. She reports that Dennis thinks he can have the house habitable within two weeks and finished by the fall. But first they’ll need a pier to get supplies in. This reminds Quoyle to tell Agnis that he bought a boat. Even if it’s a bad vessel, he figures he can use it to learn. Agnis agrees.
There’s a difference between habitable and finished; clearly, it’s going to take time for Quoyle (and Agnis) to rebuild their lives from scratch in Newfoundland. But Dennis’s report holds out the promise that it can be done, even if it will entail hard work. And, although his colleagues criticized his boat, Quoyle experiences for the first time the sensation of doing something for himself.
Themes
Agnis plans to consign Warren—already wrapped neatly in a sheet—to the sea. Quoyle offers to go with her, but then Nutbeem knocks on the door and sails into the room, intent on telling Quoyle the rest of his story about the Borogrove. Agnis suggests that they at least go down to the restaurant in the meantime. In the dining room, Nutbeem picks up where he left off, describing how he settled on the basic idea of a Chinese junk, how got someone to draw up plans but did the construction himself, and how he found an antique sail at auction. The boat was very ugly and very simple, but it got him across the Atlantic before running aground in a storm. He’s stuck until it’s repaired.
Like Partridge in New York, Nutbeem adopts Quoyle. And just as Partridge helped Quoyle to get a few steps closer to living a good life, the book suggests that Nutbeem will have a similar effect. His story illustrates taking control of one’s destiny—something that Quoyle can’t yet imagine. Nutbeem was inspired to go to the sea and then he did everything in his power to bring that vision to reality. His story quietly shows Quoyle how to live well, by taking responsibility for making his own dreams come true.
Themes
When Agnis excuses herself to take care of Warren, Quoyle interrupts Nutbeem’s soliloquy. He wonders if Nutbeem knows more about Dennis and the Polar Grinder. Nutbeem quickly realizes that Diddy Shovel left out the best part. Dennis wasn’t among the men picked up in the immediate aftermath of the wreck; in fact, he and three other men were still missing a week later. But Jack refused to give up. After the coast guard called off the search, he went out in his own boat. And he found Dennis—and another survivor—at sea, although no one knows how. Jack stopped talking to Dennis when Dennis went back out on the water again as soon as he could.
The rest of the Polar Grinder story illustrates the grit and resilience necessary to survive in Newfoundland—and life in general. It suggests that life itself is hardly short of miraculous, since it’s made up of so many miracles big and small. It’s a miracle that Dennis survived a week adrift in the north Atlantic. It’s a miracle that Jack somehow knew just where to look. And the story illustrates for Quoyle, who never knew his parents’ love, just how powerful love can be.
Themes
Miles away, on a desolate and windy stretch of shore, Agnis lays Warren’s body on the sand. Choking back tears, she bids the dog goodbye, mourning the fact that she never got to enjoy Newfoundland or the sea, and that she never met Irene. She watches until the rising tide lifts Warren’s body and carries it out to sea, toward the setting sun.
Although readers will have to wait until a later chapter reveals more about Irene, it’s clear that she was important to Agnis. The privacy of Agnis’s grief suggest her loneliness and thus her need for a familial connection to Quoyle and his girls. She needs them as much as they need her.
Themes
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