The Shipping News

The Shipping News

by

Annie Proulx

The Shipping News: Chapter 5: A Rolling Hitch Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
As Quoyle drives west along the northern coast of Newfoundland, Agnis consults a map. She’s anxious to learn if the house at Quoyle’s Point is still standing. She tells Quoyle it will be better for him to get a boat; the newspaper offices are a short two miles across the bay, when by land it’s 28 miles just from the house to the highway into town. In fact, the road to the Point is so disused that they drive past it four times before they finally find it. By then, it’s dark, so Quoyle soon decides to pull over and camp in the car overnight rather than risk the dangerously unknown road. Bunny, who wants to stay in a hotel, declares this plan (and her father) dumb. But Quoyle won’t budge.
Circumstances (and Agnis) have brought Quoyle to Newfoundland and Newfoundland wastes no time in showing Quoyle how inhospitable and challenging it can be. Allegedly, this is a place where he has a claim (in the form of the ancestral house), but he can’t even make it there thanks to rough conditions of the road. Bunny’s anger carries more than a hint of Petal’s contempt for Quoyle and reminds readers how broken he and his relationships truly are.
Themes
Love and Family Theme Icon
Redemption, Courage, and Happiness Theme Icon
Resilience and Survival Theme Icon
In the morning, a heavy fog shrouds the peninsula. Near the abandoned settlement of Capsize Cove, the road suddenly improves, and the party comes upon a squat, abandoned building with an asphalt parking lot. Quoyle parks. Agnis makes a fire and brews tea. While she and Quoyle drink, a breeze shifts the fog, and Agnis catches a glimpse of the house on the point. Carrying Bunny and Sunshine on their shoulders, she and Quoyle hike the rest of the way there.
The road gets easier halfway through, a sign that bodes well for Quoyle—at 36, he’s approaching middle age, and the first half of his life has been terrible. The building itself remains an inscrutable mystery that won’t be explained until a later chapter. For now, its very modernity seems incongruous in contrast to the rough and tumble coastline.
Themes
Redemption, Courage, and Happiness Theme Icon
Resilience and Survival Theme Icon
The house seems solid enough, even if half the windowpanes are gone and the paint—a sickly green color that Bunny hates—is flaking off. It’s secured to the rocky ground with steel cables. Agnis explains that a previous generation secured the house to prevent it from rocking like a ship at sea during storms. Quoyle pries open the door, and they cautiously enter. Everything is dusty and musty, but after a few minutes, it’s clear that the house is mostly sound. Agnis tears up when she finds the broom still hanging on the kitchen wall. But it disintegrates when she touches it.
The necessity of the cables to tie the house to the rock suggests that it lacks a firm foundation. It’s fundamentally unsafe and unsound. Similarly, Quoyle’s adult life has thus far been constructed on the weak foundation of his childhood experiences. And the house’s instability further suggests the dysfunctional relationships that have plagued the Quoyle family across generations. The broom falling apart in Agnis’s hands further suggests that the house cannot be reclaimed or cleaned up, although Agnis is clearly intent on trying.
Themes
Love and Family Theme Icon
Redemption, Courage, and Happiness Theme Icon
Outside, Quoyle builds a fire and Agnis prepares a picnic breakfast. Bunny wonders why Petal isn’t going to live with them anymore. She’s confused because Quoyle has refused to use the word “dead,” instead telling his girls that their mother went to sleep forever. Bunny observes that she would never sleep forever. Then she walks off. On the far side of the house, she sees a white dog in the brush. Her alarmed screams bring Quoyle and Agnis running, but they see no sign of the animal. Agnis turns to the house, promising herself that the Quoyles will never be driven out of there again.
Bunny is confused about death because Quoyle hasn’t been honest with her about it—ostensibly to protect her feelings. But his reaction in the immediate aftermath of Petal’s death suggested that he isn’t yet ready to face the truth, either. Both father and daughter will remain stuck as long as they’re unable to face their fears. The book aligns Bunny’s question about Petal with her first sighting of the dog, introducing it as a symbol of the terror and dread conjured up by death. Later, readers will learn the rational explanation for its presence.
Themes
Redemption, Courage, and Happiness Theme Icon
Life and Death Theme Icon
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