The Shipping News: Relationship between Parents and Children
“The Shipping News“
“The Shipping News“, written by E.Annie Proulx, was published in 1993 and tells the story of Quoyle, a man who was treated badly when he was a child and suffers from these early memories throughout his life. The novel focuses on the repercussions of the relationship between parents and their children. The style of writing changes through the extract. Firstly, Proulx uses lots of lists to illustrate the father´s perspective on his son. Secondly, she writes in the perspective of Quoyle and the style of writing gets more childish and note-like. It is almost journalistic how she describes him. The father is dominant, has clear ideas about a child`s abilities, and is a powerful influence in Quoyle´s early life. Furthermore, he seems to associate his son with his own mistake and therefore punishes him. The novel is preceded by two epigraphs, the first from Clifford Ashley´s “the Ashley book of knots”, published in 1944. This sets an old-fashioned tone, and explains how to make a knot, which already shows the strong maritime influences of the book and gives a hint about the location in which the story is set. Moreover, this extract exhibits how the family sees Quoyle: “..Make only one change in this ´over-and-under´ sequence and either an entirely different knot is made or no knot at all may result.” This connotes that they see him as exactly this failure in the family arrangement. The second epigraph is from the same book. Quoyle´s name is explained there as a “spiral coil of one layer only (..) it maybe walked on if necessary.” So, it is described as something simple and nothing of great importance. Also the expression walked on suggests that they took advantage of him. Additionally, a parallel could be drawn between this and the way his father and his siblings walk on his feelings and his pride.
The opening line already gives a first impression about Quoyle´s childhood. He moved from one “dreary upstate town” to another. That implies that he
“The Shipping News“, written by E.Annie Proulx, was published in 1993 and tells the story of Quoyle, a man who was treated badly when he was a child and suffers from these early memories throughout his life. The novel focuses on the repercussions of the relationship between parents and their children. The style of writing changes through the extract. Firstly, Proulx uses lots of lists to illustrate the father´s perspective on his son. Secondly, she writes in the perspective of Quoyle and the style of writing gets more childish and note-like. It is almost journalistic how she describes him. The father is dominant, has clear ideas about a child`s abilities, and is a powerful influence in Quoyle´s early life. Furthermore, he seems to associate his son with his own mistake and therefore punishes him. The novel is preceded by two epigraphs, the first from Clifford Ashley´s “the Ashley book of knots”, published in 1944. This sets an old-fashioned tone, and explains how to make a knot, which already shows the strong maritime influences of the book and gives a hint about the location in which the story is set. Moreover, this extract exhibits how the family sees Quoyle: “..Make only one change in this ´over-and-under´ sequence and either an entirely different knot is made or no knot at all may result.” This connotes that they see him as exactly this failure in the family arrangement. The second epigraph is from the same book. Quoyle´s name is explained there as a “spiral coil of one layer only (..) it maybe walked on if necessary.” So, it is described as something simple and nothing of great importance. Also the expression walked on suggests that they took advantage of him. Additionally, a parallel could be drawn between this and the way his father and his siblings walk on his feelings and his pride.
The opening line already gives a first impression about Quoyle´s childhood. He moved from one “dreary upstate town” to another. That implies that he