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Chapter 21: Poetic Navigation
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
In Agnis’s shop, Dawn sits at the electric typewriter, desperately copying out application cover letters for any and every job under the sun. She applies for 25 jobs each week, even if she’s not fully qualified, so desperate is she to get off the island and away from the sea. Mrs. Mavis Bangs gossips incessantly while Dawn types. She talks about how strong Agnis Hamm’s constitution is, and about how Mrs. Buggit was strong, too, before Jesson died, and she stopped going fishing with Jack. She talks about the wickedness tourists like the Melvilles bring to the island and what could inspire a woman to kill her husband. Mrs. Bangs loved both her husbands, first Thomas Munn, whom she married on her 15th birthday, and later Desmond Bangs. But being twice widowed nearly killed her, so she refused to marry a third time.
This chapter sets up a series of contrasts which together point to the book’s thesis that people must find the right context in which to flourish. Dawn Budgel is as ill-fitted for life on the northern coast of Newfoundland as Quoyle was for life in New York, although unlike him, she’s not waiting around for fate to intervene. Clearly, Silver was desperately unhappy in her marriage to Bayonet, or else, the book implies, she wouldn’t have taken such drastic action. In contrast, women like Mrs. Bangs, Agnis, and Mrs. Buggit are able to face difficulty with grace in part because of their inner strength but in part because they’re suited to their environment.
Themes
Across the island, Quoyle gives Wavey and Herry a ride home through driving rain. As they approach her little mint-colored house, they pass two men (one of whom is her brother, Ken) mending their nets. Ken ambles up as Quoyle parks the car, invites Quoyle in for tea (Quoyle demurs, saying he has to get back to work), and tells Quoyle that he’s welcome to visit Wavey any time.
Readers should note how Quoyle is becoming a natural part of this community. And he’s falling in love with Wavey—something her family not only sees but approves of. Even before he’s directly ready to acknowledge his feelings, he’s starting to experience love as a source of comfort rather than torment.
Themes
