THE SHIPPING NEWS PROJECT
KATRIN
 
 

The Shipping News

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How death is handled in The Shipping News

 

The first meeting with death in this book is when Quoyle’s parents decide to leave this world because of their illness. His father got liver cancer and his mother got brain tumor so they decided to commit suicide and left a message on Quoyle’s answering machine with instructions. The death of his parents does not seem to affect Quoyle that much, the worst thing about these circumstances is that he has to contact his brother who he really hates.
 ” But the brother, a spiritual sublieutenant in the Chrch of Personal Magnetism, did have a phone and Quoyle had his number. Felt his gut contract when the hated voice came through the reciever. Clogged nasals, adenoidal snorts. The brother said he could not come to rites for outsiders.” (page 19).
Quoyle tries to contact his aunt as well, but neither she or his brother will attend the funeral. The cool way his fami8ly and Quoyle himself deal with the parents’ death underlines the bad relationship within this family.

The next meeting with death in this novel is right after Quoyle’s parents’ death. The aunt is supposed to visit Quoyle and his family because of his parents, butby the time she arrives Quoyle has become a widower. His unfaithful wife had left him for another man and she even took their kids with her.
” They said the Geo had veered off the expressway and rolled down a bank sown with native wildflowers, caught on fire. Smoke poured from the real estate agent’s chest, Petal’s hair burned, her neck broken.(…) The police sorting through singed astrology magazines and clothes, found Petal’s purse crammed with more than nine thousand dollars in cash, her calendar book with a notion to meet Bruce Cudd on the morning before the accident. In Bacon Falls, Connecticut. There was a receipt for seven thousand dollars in exchange for ”personal services”. Looked like she had sold the children to Bruce Cudd, the police said. (page 24).
We don’t get any long graphic accounts of how this effects Quoyle and his children. The aunt has now taken the control in their lives and has persuaded Quoyle to move with her to Newfoundland where thay all can get a fresh start,
Right after their arrivial to Newfoundland we suddenly get introduced to the children’s wondering about Petal.
” ”Dad”, panted Bunny, clacking two stones together. ”Isn’t Petal going to live with us any more?” Quoyle was stunned. He’d explained that Petal was gone, that she was asleep and could never wake up, shoking back his own grief, reading aloud from a book the undertaker had supplied, A Child’s Introduction to Departure of a Loved One. ”No, Bunny. She’s gone to sleep. She’s in heaven. Remember, I told you? ” For he had protected them from the funeral, had never said the word. Dead. (…) ”If I was asleep I would wake up”, said Bunny, walking away from him and around the house. (pages 45-46).
Quoyle does not know how to handle the truth when it comes to his children. He wants to spare them, and does what he thinks is best for them. It is difficult to explain death to children, so he chooses to tell them that Peatl has gone to sleep and is in heaven. I think Bunny’s comment shows that she doesn’t understand that Petal is gone forever, and that she needs to learn more about this difficult issue.

Quoyle has no idea how to tell the children the truth, but further out in the novel he gets help from Wavey.
” Then Bunny ran at them with her hands cupped. Always an arrow flying to the target. A stiff, perfect bird, as small as a stone in a child’s hand. Folded legs. ” A dead bird”, said Wavey. ” The poor thing’s neck is broken”. For the head lolled. She said nothing about sleep nor heaven. Bunny laid it on a rock, went back to look at it twenty times.” (page 310).
Wavey tells the truth straight out, and later she explain why she thinks it is best to do it this way.

When everybody thinks that Jack is dead, Quoyle gets a question which he finds very hard to answer.
” ” Dad, Wavey says I have to ask you. I want to og to the awake for Uncle Jack” (…). ” Bunny it’s ”the wake” not the awake” (…). Let me talk to Wavey about this.” But Wavey thought it was right for them to og. Quoyle said there had been too much death in the past year. ” But everything dies”, said Wavey. ” There is grief and loss in life. They need to understand that, they seem to think death is just sleep.”  Well, said Quoyle, they were children. Children should be protected from knowledge of death. And what about Bunny’s nightmares? Might get worse. ” But m’dear, if they don’t know what death is how can they understand the deep part of life? (…). ” Maybe”, said Wavey, ” she has those nightmares because she’s afraid if she sleeps she wont wake up-like Petal and Warren and her grandparents. (….)”. And so Quoyle agreed. And promised not to say that Jack was sleeping. (pages 331-332).

Quoyle’s children are by now getting closer to an explanation. Even though the circumstances around Jack’s wake trouble Wavey’s and Quoyle’s efforts to explain death. In the end of the novel Wavey takes Bunny back to where she had found the dead bird to try to show her that once you have died you can never wake up again. This is a beautiful scene in the novel. This scene shows that Bunny has not fully understood what it means to be dead, but she is getting closer and by now everything is up and out in the open and honestly told to the children.
” The rock was there, but no bird. A small feather in a tuft of grass. It could have come from any bird. Bunny picked it up. ” It flew away”. ” (page 336).