The Shipping News

The Shipping News

by

Annie Proulx

Agnis Hamm Character Analysis

Agnis Hamm is Quoyle’s paternal aunt—she is the younger half-sister of his father, Guy. Agnis and Guy shared their mother—Addy Quoyle—but not their father. Agnis’s father was Cokey Hamm; he died tragically when Agnis was still a child. She grew up in the house on Quoyle’s Point. She suffered sexual assault at Guy’s hands starting when she was six years old. The abuse lasted throughout her entire childhood and ultimately culminated in a pregnancy, which she terminated with a self-administered abortion. She moved to America with the rest of the family when she was a teen. Agnis never married but had a long-term lover named Irene Warren. They lived together on a houseboat in Long Island, and after Agnis showed a talent for upholstery, Irene encouraged her to turn her passion into a business. Agnis did this, opening her own very successful shop just a few months after Irene’s death. Agnis is a large, kind, and no-nonsense woman who never had children of her own but who nevertheless embraces Quoyle, Bunny, and Sunshine. She has a complicated relationship with the past, as she’s both proud and possessive of her place in Newfoundland and traumatized by the abuse and loss she suffered. By her own admission, she’s a woman of action and she readily adapts to her changing circumstances with fortitude, even when facing deeply painful losses, like Irene’s death or the loss of the familial house.

Agnis Hamm Quotes in The Shipping News

The The Shipping News quotes below are all either spoken by Agnis Hamm or refer to Agnis Hamm . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Love and Family Theme Icon
).
Chapter 4: Cast Away Quotes

Partridge back on the line two days later. Pleased to be fixing Quoyle’s life up again. Quoyle made him think of a huge roll of newsprint from the pulp mill. Blank and speckled with imperfections. But beyond this vagueness he glimpsed something like a reflection of light from a distant hubcap, a scintillation that meant there was, in Quoyle’s life, the chance of some brilliance. Happiness? Good luck? Fame and fortune? Who knows, thought Partridge. He liked the rich taste of life so well himself he wished an entrée or two for Quoyle.

Related Characters: Quoyle , Agnis Hamm , Wavey Prowse , Partridge , Sian Quoyle, Archie
Page Number: 31
Explanation and Analysis:

Later, some knew it as a place that bred malefic spirits. Spring starvation showed skully heads, knobbed joints beneath flesh. What desperate work to stay alive, to scrob and claw though hard times. The alchemist sea changed fishermen into wet bones, sent boats to drift among the cod, cast them on the landwash. She remembered the stories in old mouths: the father who shot his oldest children and himself that the rest might live on flour scrapings; sealers crouched on a floe awash from their weight until one leaped into the sea; storm journeys to fetch medicine—always the wrong thing and too late for the convulsing hangashore.

Related Characters: Agnis Hamm
Page Number: 33
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8: A Slippery Hitch Quotes

The aunt drove her needles furiously. Wool twitched through her fingers.

“Of course you can do the job. We face up to awful things because we can’t go around them, or forget them. The sooner you get it over with, the sooner you say ‘Yes, it happened, and there’s nothing I can do about it,’ the sooner you can get on with your own life. You’ve got children to bring up. So you’ve got to get over it. What we have to get over, somehow we do. Even the worst things.”

Sure, get over it, thought Quoyle. Ten-cent philosophy. She didn’t know what he had been through. Was going through.

Related Characters: Agnis Hamm (speaker), Quoyle , Guy Quoyle , Mrs. Mavis Bangs, Ed Punch , Dick Quoyle
Page Number: 72
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15: The Upholstery Shop Quotes

“Yes of course I remember. […] There was another white dog adventure couple weeks ago. You know that little white stone I had on my garden rock? If you squinted at it it looked like a dog’s head? She come pounding on the door yelling her head off. I thought something terrible’d happened. Couldn’t get her to stop yelling and tell me what was the matter. At last she holds out her hand. There’s a tiny cut on one finger, tiny, about a quarter of an inch long. One drop of blood. I put a bandage on it and she calmed down. Wouldn’t say how she got the cut. But a couple days later she says to be that she threw away ‘the dog-face stone’ and it bit her. She says it was a dog bite on her finger.”

The aunt laughed to show it wasn’t anything to have a fit about.

Related Characters: Agnis Hamm (speaker), Quoyle , Bunny Quoyle , Wavey Prowse , Nolan Quoyle
Related Symbols: House, White Dog
Page Number: 133
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 24: Berry Picking  Quotes

His aroused senses imbued the far scene with enormous importance. The small figures against the vast rock with the sea beyond. All the complex wires of life were striped out and he could see the structure of life. Nothing but rock and sea, the tiny figures of humans and animals against them for a brief time.

The sharpness of his gaze pierced the past. He saw generations like migrating birds, the bay flecked with ghost sails, the deserted settlements vigorous again, and in the abyss nets spangled with scales. Saw the Quoyles rinsed of evil by the passage of time. He imagined the aunt buried and gone, himself old, Wavey stooped with age, his daughters in faraway lives, Herry still delighted by wooden dogs and colored threads, a grizzled Herry who would sleep in a north room at the top of the house or in the little room under the stairs.

Related Characters: Quoyle , Agnis Hamm , Bunny Quoyle , Sunshine Quoyle, Wavey Prowse , Herry Prowse
Page Number: 196
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 33: The Cousin Quotes

The house was heavy around him, the pressure of the past filling the rooms like odorless gas. The sea breathed in the distance. The house meant something to the aunt. Did that bind him? The coast around the house seemed beautiful to him. But the house was wrong. Had always been wrong, he thought. Dragged by human labor across miles of ice, the outcasts straining against the ropes and shouting curses at the godly mob. Winched onto rock. Groaning. A bound prisoner straining to get free. The humming of the taut cables. That vibration passed into the house, made it seem alive. That was it, in the house he felt he was inside a tethered animal, dumb but feeling. Swallowed by the shouting past.

Related Characters: Quoyle , Agnis Hamm , Guy Quoyle
Related Symbols: House
Page Number: 263
Explanation and Analysis:

In the man before him, in the hut, crammed with the poverty of another century, Quoyle saw what he had sprung from. For the old man was mad, the gears of his mind stripped long ago to clashing discs edged with the stubs of broken cogs. Mad with loneliness or lovelessness, or from some genetic chemical jungle, or the flooding betrayal that all hermits suffer. Lops of fishing line underfoot, the snarl tangled into compacted detritus, a churn of splinters, sand, rain, sea wet, mud, bits of wool, gnawed sheep ribs, spruce needles, fish scales and bones, burst air bladders, seal offal, squid cartilage, broken glass, torn cloth, dog hair, nail pairings, bark and blood.

Related Characters: Quoyle , Agnis Hamm , Nolan Quoyle, Tert Card
Related Symbols: House, Knots
Page Number: 264-265
Explanation and Analysis:
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Agnis Hamm Quotes in The Shipping News

The The Shipping News quotes below are all either spoken by Agnis Hamm or refer to Agnis Hamm . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Love and Family Theme Icon
).
Chapter 4: Cast Away Quotes

Partridge back on the line two days later. Pleased to be fixing Quoyle’s life up again. Quoyle made him think of a huge roll of newsprint from the pulp mill. Blank and speckled with imperfections. But beyond this vagueness he glimpsed something like a reflection of light from a distant hubcap, a scintillation that meant there was, in Quoyle’s life, the chance of some brilliance. Happiness? Good luck? Fame and fortune? Who knows, thought Partridge. He liked the rich taste of life so well himself he wished an entrée or two for Quoyle.

Related Characters: Quoyle , Agnis Hamm , Wavey Prowse , Partridge , Sian Quoyle, Archie
Page Number: 31
Explanation and Analysis:

Later, some knew it as a place that bred malefic spirits. Spring starvation showed skully heads, knobbed joints beneath flesh. What desperate work to stay alive, to scrob and claw though hard times. The alchemist sea changed fishermen into wet bones, sent boats to drift among the cod, cast them on the landwash. She remembered the stories in old mouths: the father who shot his oldest children and himself that the rest might live on flour scrapings; sealers crouched on a floe awash from their weight until one leaped into the sea; storm journeys to fetch medicine—always the wrong thing and too late for the convulsing hangashore.

Related Characters: Agnis Hamm
Page Number: 33
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8: A Slippery Hitch Quotes

The aunt drove her needles furiously. Wool twitched through her fingers.

“Of course you can do the job. We face up to awful things because we can’t go around them, or forget them. The sooner you get it over with, the sooner you say ‘Yes, it happened, and there’s nothing I can do about it,’ the sooner you can get on with your own life. You’ve got children to bring up. So you’ve got to get over it. What we have to get over, somehow we do. Even the worst things.”

Sure, get over it, thought Quoyle. Ten-cent philosophy. She didn’t know what he had been through. Was going through.

Related Characters: Agnis Hamm (speaker), Quoyle , Guy Quoyle , Mrs. Mavis Bangs, Ed Punch , Dick Quoyle
Page Number: 72
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15: The Upholstery Shop Quotes

“Yes of course I remember. […] There was another white dog adventure couple weeks ago. You know that little white stone I had on my garden rock? If you squinted at it it looked like a dog’s head? She come pounding on the door yelling her head off. I thought something terrible’d happened. Couldn’t get her to stop yelling and tell me what was the matter. At last she holds out her hand. There’s a tiny cut on one finger, tiny, about a quarter of an inch long. One drop of blood. I put a bandage on it and she calmed down. Wouldn’t say how she got the cut. But a couple days later she says to be that she threw away ‘the dog-face stone’ and it bit her. She says it was a dog bite on her finger.”

The aunt laughed to show it wasn’t anything to have a fit about.

Related Characters: Agnis Hamm (speaker), Quoyle , Bunny Quoyle , Wavey Prowse , Nolan Quoyle
Related Symbols: House, White Dog
Page Number: 133
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 24: Berry Picking  Quotes

His aroused senses imbued the far scene with enormous importance. The small figures against the vast rock with the sea beyond. All the complex wires of life were striped out and he could see the structure of life. Nothing but rock and sea, the tiny figures of humans and animals against them for a brief time.

The sharpness of his gaze pierced the past. He saw generations like migrating birds, the bay flecked with ghost sails, the deserted settlements vigorous again, and in the abyss nets spangled with scales. Saw the Quoyles rinsed of evil by the passage of time. He imagined the aunt buried and gone, himself old, Wavey stooped with age, his daughters in faraway lives, Herry still delighted by wooden dogs and colored threads, a grizzled Herry who would sleep in a north room at the top of the house or in the little room under the stairs.

Related Characters: Quoyle , Agnis Hamm , Bunny Quoyle , Sunshine Quoyle, Wavey Prowse , Herry Prowse
Page Number: 196
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 33: The Cousin Quotes

The house was heavy around him, the pressure of the past filling the rooms like odorless gas. The sea breathed in the distance. The house meant something to the aunt. Did that bind him? The coast around the house seemed beautiful to him. But the house was wrong. Had always been wrong, he thought. Dragged by human labor across miles of ice, the outcasts straining against the ropes and shouting curses at the godly mob. Winched onto rock. Groaning. A bound prisoner straining to get free. The humming of the taut cables. That vibration passed into the house, made it seem alive. That was it, in the house he felt he was inside a tethered animal, dumb but feeling. Swallowed by the shouting past.

Related Characters: Quoyle , Agnis Hamm , Guy Quoyle
Related Symbols: House
Page Number: 263
Explanation and Analysis:

In the man before him, in the hut, crammed with the poverty of another century, Quoyle saw what he had sprung from. For the old man was mad, the gears of his mind stripped long ago to clashing discs edged with the stubs of broken cogs. Mad with loneliness or lovelessness, or from some genetic chemical jungle, or the flooding betrayal that all hermits suffer. Lops of fishing line underfoot, the snarl tangled into compacted detritus, a churn of splinters, sand, rain, sea wet, mud, bits of wool, gnawed sheep ribs, spruce needles, fish scales and bones, burst air bladders, seal offal, squid cartilage, broken glass, torn cloth, dog hair, nail pairings, bark and blood.

Related Characters: Quoyle , Agnis Hamm , Nolan Quoyle, Tert Card
Related Symbols: House, Knots
Page Number: 264-265
Explanation and Analysis: