The Shipping News

The Shipping News

by

Annie Proulx

The Shipping News Symbols

House

The green house represents the weight of history and familial dysfunction. The Quoyles, who dragged the house across the frozen sea ice from Gaze Island to Newfoundland a century before the events in the book…

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Knots

Knots represent the many kinds of relationships, needs, and mutual dependencies that bind people to one another. The epigraph to The Shipping News is a quote from the Ashley Book of Knots that notes how…

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White Dog

The white dog that Bunny sees lurking in the fog around the house on Quoyle’s Point represents trauma and death. At the beginning of the book, Bunny experiences significant trauma, first when her mother Petal

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