Past the Shallows Essay Questions

What connections does Parrett lead the reader to make between the ocean and Dad?

Because Dad and the ocean are both unpredictable and threatening, the ocean functions as a symbol of Miles's relationship with his father. Although young, Miles works on a boat and surfs, giving him a comprehensive experience of the ocean that surrounds his island town of Bruny. Early in the novel, Miles pilots the fishing boat across the channel while reflecting on the dangers of the invisible currents which purportedly swept Uncle Nick's body away without leaving a trace. At the same time, Miles gains joy and pleasure from surfing on the same water. Miles's relationship with his father is analogous. While he is forever trying not to upset his father while fishing, knowing it will provoke his simmering rage, Miles is delighted and relieved when Dad is in a good mood after a bountiful abalone dive. At the end of the novel, Parrett cements the symbolic connection between the ocean and Dad by matching their escalating violence: just as Dad pushes Harry into the water, a six-foot swell engulfs the boat. Ultimately, the turbulent ocean Miles both fears and depends upon is a symbol for the compromised trust generated by his dysfunctional attachment to Dad.

Why is Miles's shark-tooth necklace key to the plot of Past the Shallows?

Early in the novel, while helping Joe pack up Granddad's house, Miles and Harry find a white shark-tooth necklace in the backseat of Mum's crashed vehicle, which Granddad had stored in his garage. Miles recognizes that the necklace is significant, but he isn't able to comprehend its full significance in that moment. It is only after Miles puts the necklace on Harry and Dad discovers it hanging from Harry's neck that Miles begins to piece together his memory of who the necklace belonged to. Without using his name, Dad implies that the necklace belonged to Uncle Nick, who Miles remembers as having been in the passenger seat when Mum crashed; Nick had given the necklace to Miles before the four of them drove away to Hobart to start a new life together. After Miles makes the connection between Nick and the necklace, he remembers how Dad pulled Nick from the vehicle and, presumably, murdered him as revenge for having an affair with his wife. In this way, the shark-tooth necklace is a crucial plot device for unlocking the details of Mum's death and allowing Miles to grieve while accepting the full truth of what happened.

Why is it important that Miles remembers Uncle Nick was also in the vehicle the night of Mum's car crash?

The narrative about his mother's death that Miles received from his family was that she must have had a heart attack caused by her blood-pressure medication, leading her to crash the car. But over the course of the novel, Miles re-experiences the night of the crash in memory fragments. Steadily, he and the reader piece together a fuller account of what actually happened. One of the most crucial moments is when Miles recalls how a man had got in the passenger seat and acted flirtatiously with his mother; the man was Uncle Nick. With this new information, the idea that she had crashed on her own accord seems much less likely, and Miles is able to access more of his repressed memory. As more details accumulate, such as the luggage that had been packed into the car, it becomes clear that Mum hadn't committed suicide but had been trying to start a new life in Hobart in which she and Nick would raise Harry and Miles away from Dad and Aunty Jean. In a further ironic twist, Parrett prompts the reader to ascertain that Dad may have driven Mum's vehicle off the road and then pulled Nick out and murdered him, making the body disappear in the bay, despite Dad's claim that Nick was already dead.

The novel closes with lines that echo its preface. What is the effect of this repetition?

Past the Shallows begins and ends with brief passages that describe the black and cold water roaring past the sandy-bottomed shallow-water bays. However, the lines that follow the repeated lines differ significantly. In the preface, the narrative focal point follows invisible currents below the waterline to probe the reefs where the treasured abalone live; conversely, the novel ends with lines that suggest Miles and Joe will stay above the water, following the currents to somewhere warm and new. With this contrast, Parrett reconfigures the opening lines to illustrate the dramatic change in perspective and prospects Miles has undergone. Once dependent on his father's luck finding abalone in frigid and hazardous coastal waters, Miles ends the novel with the freedom to set sail toward a new and better life somewhere warm.

Explain the significance of memory in Past the Shallows.

Memory's relation to trauma is a central thematic concern in Past the Shallows. Over the course of the novel, Miles unlocks more and more of his fragmented memory of the night his mother died and he sat traumatized in the backseat while her lifeless body lay slumped over the steering wheel. Because of the trauma of that night, Miles develops dissociative amnesia, a psychological condition in which post-traumatic stress leads people to forget certain traumatic events. Seen as a survival mechanism that allows people to live without constantly having to recall the pain of difficult episodes from the past, dissociative amnesia expresses itself in Miles through an instinctive repression that protects him from having to confront the unpleasant truth that he witnessed Dad take part in Mum's and Uncle Nick's deaths. However, Miles cannot keep the full memory from resurfacing. By the end of the novel, he confronts the truth he had been avoiding, and in doing so gains the strength to sever ties with his dangerous father.