The Plan
1. Who are the protagonist and antagonist? What is the conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist?
2. What is the setting - where and when does it take place? Why is it in this setting? What does this setting represent?
3. Could there be a connection between the events in the story and the events in the author’s life? If so, what connection could there be? Is there a connection between the setting in the story and the author?
4. Is there a character shift seen in the story? If so, which characters changed? How did they change?
5. Is the title symbolic? If so, what does it stand for? What relation does it have to the story?
6. If imagery is used, is it used effectively? Is it used for a purpose?
7. What struggle or tough decision does the main character face?
8. What perspective is the story told from? How does this perspective have an affect on how we read the story?
8. What perspective is the story told from? How does this perspective have an affect on how we read the story?
9. What thematic elements are underlying in the story?
10. Create a character sketch of each of the main characters. Explain why you see each character as having those characteristics.
11. Were similes used in the story? If so, give examples. Were they used effectively?
12. Were there metaphors used in the story? If so, give examples. Also, explain what the meaning of the metaphors are.
Pre-Reading
Alistair MacLeod
-born in North Battleford Saskatchewan july 20 1936
-when MacLeod was ten his family moved to a farm in Dunvegan, Inverness County on Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Island
-in the 1930 there was a fishing depression which could have effect on the fathers job in the short story
-before he was born his dad got lead poisoning, lost a lung, his bones calcified and was very weakened
-had a job as a fisherman, minor, and has degrees from multiple universities
-he has six kids
-several of his novels and short story involve initiation of a child or young man into the
knowledge of tragedy and the vanity of human aspirations
-the boat is his first short story he published
Questions Answered
1. In my opinion, in The Boat, the protagonist and antagonist are fighting within one person - they are one person, just at different stages of life. I see the protagonist to be the narrator as a young boy. He is still learning things about life and viewing it from a state of innocence. The way he is seeing things is different than it will be when he grows up. The antagonist is simply that - growing up. He is fighting an internal conflict with his own maturity. As he grows up he learns things about people that he never understood as a young boy - why they act the way they do, who they really are inside. He begins to learn things about himself, and he has to decide who he wants to be and what he wants to do with his life. He starts to see his father for who he really is, a man struggling to hold on to life and losing his grip on reasons to be alive. The young boy was facing a difficult conflict. His father had always wanted the best for him, he did not want him to drop out of school, and it seems he was happy with all of his children leaving their hometown and going off to school. It seems he may have learned about the growing world outside of their small fishing town. But the boy could not see his father come to such a selfless end of life. He wanted to do something in return for his father, he wanted him to die happy and with his son by his side, and his wife proud of him for having one of his children stay to work the traditional life that she thought was right. As a young boy, it was hard for him to decide what was the right thing to do. He was at a stage in life where everything becomes very confusing and decisions become more and more difficult all the time. I think he made the right decision by deciding to stay with his father.
2. The setting in this story is very important. Technically, it would be correct to say that the setting of the story is a small fishing town on Cape Breton Island, around the 1950's. I believe this is the time period that the story takes place because this is when Ernest Hemingway was about the same age as the boy's father. This would make sense as to how he looked just like Ernest Hemingway in the picture that the tourists took of him. Coincidentally (or maybe not), Ernest Hemingway also published a novel called "The Old Man and the Sea" in 1952, which was a story about an aging fisherman fighting a battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. Also, the author moved to a small town on Cape Breton island when he was ten years old, which would have been 1946. By the time he was the same age as the boy in the story, it would have been 1951. In my opinion, there are two settings in the story. Their house in Cape Breton, and the more significant and mysterious setting; the boat. Nobody ever knows what it is actually like for the father out on the boat until the end of the story. Throughout the entire story, they simply ask "Well, how did things go in the boat today?" and what ever the father told them, was what they knew. This is what made the boat a mysterious setting with a lack of answers; what really goes on out there on the sea? How does the father really feel when he is out there? I think the setting at the end of the story is strictly the man and son on the boat. I think it is a very important setting because a connection builds between the man and son, the son learns about his father, he bonds with him, and he is forced to see him disappear forever. It is important that the father died out on the boat with his son, because it seems that his entire life would have been for nothing if it had not ended that way. He died doing what he had done his entire life, but he died with a better perspective on it, simply because his son was there with him.
3. I think it is very likely that there is a connection between the events in the story and the events in the author's life. First of all, the author moved back to his homeland of Cape Breton Island when he was ten years old, around the same age as the boy in the story. This is a clear connection between the setting in the story and the author. The author was forced to face the tragedy of his father's lead poisoning when he was a young boy. MacLeod is known to write stories with the theme of a child having to face tragedy at a young age. This may be caused by the things that happened to his father when he was a young boy. He then wrote his first short story, "The Boat", about a boy who becomes a young man and loses his father. I think this is a connection the author made to his own life.
4. There is one main character shift in the story; the changes in the narrator. As he changes from a boy to a young man, his view on his life and the lives of others changes. As a little boy he always dreamed of finishing high school and getting an education. As he matures and grows to a young man, he feels that doing such a thing would be selfish. He starts to feel sympathy for his father, and cannot leave him. When he decides to stay with his father, his character has changed dramatically. He is finally doing things with a purpose. As a child, it is common to just do what you like and not understand how you are affecting others. He decides to stay with his father because making his parents happy brings just as much joy to him as the thought of getting an education. There also seems to be a character shift within the father. Throughout the story he seems to be a mysterious, lonely man. He is always by himself in his room, indulged in his books, or out on the boat alone with his brother in law. He doesn't seem to actually like being a fisherman, and comes off as a somewhat depressed man, almost as if he feels like a failure because he became a fisherman instead of getting an education. This would explain why he wants his children to all leave Cape Breton Island and get an education. When the son decides to stay with him, he is no longer alone. His wife is happy with him because he has retained his only son, and he is able to continue fishing, no longer ill. It seems he comes out of his depression, and dies a happy man.
5. The title "The Boat" is very symbolic. The narrator talks about how often people refer to the boat. To the boy, it seemed like the boat was just as important to the family as their own lives were. The title symbolizes a very important time in the boy's life. It was a time of growing up, finding himself, getting to know his father, and facing tragedy. The titles has a large relation to the story because the entire story is based off of the boat. It seems as though the boat is an object portrayed as a place. When you go to the boat, things happen that people will never understand. The boat takes you out onto the sea where you are all alone. Events could take place out on the boat that the family at home could never know about. I think the title symbolizes the growing up of the boy, as this seems to be what the story is all about.
6. Imagery is used constantly throughout the story. It is used for a strong purpose, and it is used very effectively. The purpose is to give the reader an idea of how the boy saw things. The author often refers to the smell of the sea, the salt and the cigarettes, the sound of his father singing, and the sound of the boat. He constantly describes things he could sense, trying to give the reader a deep perspective on the setting and the events that take place. This is very effective because this kind of detail makes the reader fall deeper and deeper into the story until they feel like they are actually there, seeing, smelling, and hearing things just as the boy is. This is important because when the reader starts feeling things the same way the main character does, it is easier for them to understand the story. When the boy loses his father in the end, I could feel the same sense of emptiness the boy felt when he turned around to see that his father had disappeared forever.
7. The tough decision that the main character faces is choosing between his dream of getting an education, or staying in Cape Breton with his father as a fisherman. Even though he knows his father wants him to get an education, he knows that his father also wants him to do what makes him happy. When his father says he should not have dropped out of school, he does not TELL him to go back to school, he ASKS him. This is an important part of the story because this is where the boy learns that his father just wants the best for him. If he is going to stay and be a fisherman, his father wants him to do it because he wants to, not because he has to. He does not want the son to feel that he has to drop out of school and become a fisherman to save his family, because he does not want his son to make the same mistake he did. The boy is forced to find himself, and decide whether or not he wants to become a fisherman for the right reasons. He decides that he wants to fish because he wants to stay with his father, not because he has to, so his father does not object to it. This would have been a tough decision for him to face as a boy because it will change his life forever.
8. The story is told from the perspective of a boy who becomes a young man over the course of the story. This has a dramatic effect on how we read the story because at the beginning of the story, the boy sees everything in the perspective of an innocent young child. There are things that he does not understand that an older reader would understand. Since we are seeing things from the perspective of the boy, who does not understand much himself, we do not necessarily see things the way they really are. As the boy becomes a young man, our perspective on things change just as his perspective on things change. He starts to see things how they really are, he understands how his father really feels about his lifestyle, and he understands what the boat really is. The perspective is also different at the beginning of the story when he is a man, because he looks back on his life and sees things differently, allowing the reader to see things the same way.
9. There are several underlying thematic elements in the story, but I think the strongest and most obvious theme of the story is the growth of a boy to a man. All boys go through the struggles of puberty when they start becoming a young man, but The Boat demonstrates how the hardest part about growing up is the kind of decisions you have to start making. Commonly, high school is seen as the growing stage for a boy to a man or a girl to a woman. This is when they have to decide what they want to do for the rest of their lives, which is a very stressful thing to have on one's mind all the time. This is the kind of decision that the boy in The Boat has to face. Should he pursue his dream of getting an education, or should he stay with his father and become a fisherman by his side? Making these kind of decisions can change a person. The boy has to look at it with maturity. He knows what he wants, but he feels selfish. The fact that he sacrifices his own education to stay and work with his family because he loves his father shows that he has grown and matured. The most obvious change in maturity is between the two times he decides to drop out of school. The first time, he dropped out because he thought he needed to help the family make money because his father was ill. He did not WANT to be a fisherman, but he would do it anyways because he felt it had to be done. His father objected to this because he did not want him to live the rest of his life doing something he doesn't enjoy - just like him. The second time, he dropped out of school because he WANTED to. He wanted to spend time with his father and become close to him. He had a real reason to be a fisherman, therefore his father did not object to it. The boy grew up immensely between the first and second time he dropped out of school.
As children, terrible things are hidden from us so that we can "keep our innocence". For example, children are not allowed to watch horror movies because it is wrong for them to see a human body torn apart, to watch someone die, or to know what sex is. In our society, these are things that are reserved for adulthood. Often, the children that are the most sheltered are the children who take the hardest hit when they finally learn all of these horrible things. These sort of things change people, positively and negatively. Many children that have experienced the loss of their parents are changed forever. They have experienced tragedy, they welcome it. Things like horror movies are not as scary for them compared to their innocent peers. Bad things that happen do not surprise them, because they have matured earlier than other kids because they have learned about the horrible things of the world. This is what Alistair Macleod often writes about - the initiation of a child or young man into the knowledge of tragedy. This is one of the themes in The Boat. The boy was with his father for the last few seconds before he disappeared forever. He knew exactly what had happened to him when he turned around and saw that he wasn't there. Most people go into shock and do not accept the fact that their loved one is gone, they simply will not believe it. The boy knew right away what had happened and accepted reality for what it was. This shows great maturity. Getting up early every morning without his father's help, working all summer, and being on the boat with his father had changed him from a boy to a man.
10. Mother
Traditional - she believes in the old fashioned ways of working all day for what you have. The woman does all the cooking and cleaning, and the man goes out during the day and works so that they can put food on the table and clothes on their backs. She does not believe in education and thinks going to school is a waste of time.
Stubborn - she will not change her ways. Some traditional people can be talked into understanding how the world has changed and that education is the way now. This woman can not be reasoned with, she has always lived a certain way and refuses to change. When her husband allows the girls to go work in a restaurant, she is so stubborn that she blames her husband and says that he is wrong and hopes he's happy when the girls come home knocked up.
Selfish - she does not want the best for her children, she wants her children to do things the way she does things. The father wants the children to get an education because he knows it is best for them and will make them happy, whereas the mother wants the children to stay at home and work because that would make her happy.
Father
Intelligent - it is obvious that the father was not meant to be a fisherman. His room is filled with books and he encourages his children to get an education. He is smart enough to realize that the old traditional ways will no longer provide people with a good quality of life. If he could go back and start over, I am sure that he would get an education rather than become a fisherman.
Selfless - this man has worked his entire life doing something he does not enjoy because he knows it is what he has to do to feed his family. It is clear that he is not happy being a fisherman, but he does it for his family's well-being. He doesn't want his children to fallow in his footsteps like the stereotypical father in the 1950's, he wants them to do what makes them happy. He does not tell his son to go back to school, he emphasizes the fact that he is just asking. This shows how much he cares for the happiness of his family over his own happiness.
Mysterious - the father leaves many unanswered questions of himself. He seems like a many of many mysteries, full of stories that have never been told. He seems to have an unexplained reason for everything he does. He sees the world differently than everyone else, but he does not brag about it or condescend. He prefers to spend his time alone in his room reading books and smoking. The children are always so curious as to what their father finds so interesting in these books he is always reading, and why he spends so much time alone. They seem to always go into his room just to figure out what is going on.
Young Boy
Confused - the boy is at a point in his life where he doesn't really know where his life is going. He isn't sure what the right thing to do is yet, and can't decide if he should get an education or stay and work with his father. He does not even understand why he does the things he does. He drops out of school to help get the boat ready, almost as if he needs to prove to his parents that he's a grown up, but as soon as he is confronted by his father about it, he goes back to school. This shows that he did not feel very strongly about dropping out of school because he did not even argue with his father about it, he just went back to school. The boy doesn't seem to know what he really wants.
Caring - the boy shows many times in the story that he has a huge soft spot for his father. He refuses to leave his father alone with his mother, to be forever considered a failure in her eyes for not retaining any of his children. He feels as though his father is deteriorating and his departure will only result in and end of his father. He decides that by staying with his father he can make him happy and make his mother happy with the man. He sacrifices his own education to save his father, and his mother tells him "You have given added years to his life". The boy has given his father a reason to keep going, and I think this satisfies him more than getting an education ever would because he loves his father so much.
Ignorant - the boy's ignorance is typical of a child. He sees everything from the perspective of a child, so obviously he is not going to understand the real meaning behind everything. His innocence protects him from understanding how his father really feels about his lifestyle. His ignorance prevents him from seeing the fact that his father is actually a very lonely, depressed man. As he grows up, this does change. His ignorance begins to fade, and he starts seeing things how they really are. For example, when he says "And I saw then, that summer, many things that I had seen all my life as if for the first time" he is stating that his ignorant perspective is gone and he finally sees the truth behind his father.
11. Although there are not many, there are a few similes used in The Boat. An example of a great simile used is when the boy describes his father's bedroom by saying "Still the room remained, like a rock of opposition
in the sparkling waters of a clear deep harbour". This simile is very effective in describing how visibly different his father's bedroom is from the rest of the house. It easily shows how the rest of the house is so clean like the sparkling waters of a clear deep harbour, but his father's room is like a rock of opposition, meaning it is dirty and the complete opposite of sparkling water, or a clean house.
12. Once again, there are not many metaphors used in The Boat, but the ones that are used are very effective in deeply describing an image. When the author wants to describe the cigarettes in the ashtray beside the man's bed, he says "At such times only the grey corpses on the overflowing ashtray beside my bed bear witness to the extinction of the latest spark and silently await the crushing out of the most recent of their fellows." Clearly, there are not grey corpses beside his bed. He is referring to the remains of his cigarettes, the ashes and the burnt out cigarette butts that are in his ashtray. He describes them as being able to see the ending of a spark and the crushing of their fellow cigarettes. Clearly, cigarettes can not see. He is trying to get the point across that he is alone in his room, smoking many cigarettes just like his father. The fact that the ashes of cigarettes are the only things that witness the end of the next cigarette is meant to emphasize his loneliness. This is a very effective metaphor.
As children, terrible things are hidden from us so that we can "keep our innocence". For example, children are not allowed to watch horror movies because it is wrong for them to see a human body torn apart, to watch someone die, or to know what sex is. In our society, these are things that are reserved for adulthood. Often, the children that are the most sheltered are the children who take the hardest hit when they finally learn all of these horrible things. These sort of things change people, positively and negatively. Many children that have experienced the loss of their parents are changed forever. They have experienced tragedy, they welcome it. Things like horror movies are not as scary for them compared to their innocent peers. Bad things that happen do not surprise them, because they have matured earlier than other kids because they have learned about the horrible things of the world. This is what Alistair Macleod often writes about - the initiation of a child or young man into the knowledge of tragedy. This is one of the themes in The Boat. The boy was with his father for the last few seconds before he disappeared forever. He knew exactly what had happened to him when he turned around and saw that he wasn't there. Most people go into shock and do not accept the fact that their loved one is gone, they simply will not believe it. The boy knew right away what had happened and accepted reality for what it was. This shows great maturity. Getting up early every morning without his father's help, working all summer, and being on the boat with his father had changed him from a boy to a man.
10. Mother
Traditional - she believes in the old fashioned ways of working all day for what you have. The woman does all the cooking and cleaning, and the man goes out during the day and works so that they can put food on the table and clothes on their backs. She does not believe in education and thinks going to school is a waste of time.
Stubborn - she will not change her ways. Some traditional people can be talked into understanding how the world has changed and that education is the way now. This woman can not be reasoned with, she has always lived a certain way and refuses to change. When her husband allows the girls to go work in a restaurant, she is so stubborn that she blames her husband and says that he is wrong and hopes he's happy when the girls come home knocked up.
Selfish - she does not want the best for her children, she wants her children to do things the way she does things. The father wants the children to get an education because he knows it is best for them and will make them happy, whereas the mother wants the children to stay at home and work because that would make her happy.
Father
Intelligent - it is obvious that the father was not meant to be a fisherman. His room is filled with books and he encourages his children to get an education. He is smart enough to realize that the old traditional ways will no longer provide people with a good quality of life. If he could go back and start over, I am sure that he would get an education rather than become a fisherman.
Selfless - this man has worked his entire life doing something he does not enjoy because he knows it is what he has to do to feed his family. It is clear that he is not happy being a fisherman, but he does it for his family's well-being. He doesn't want his children to fallow in his footsteps like the stereotypical father in the 1950's, he wants them to do what makes them happy. He does not tell his son to go back to school, he emphasizes the fact that he is just asking. This shows how much he cares for the happiness of his family over his own happiness.
Mysterious - the father leaves many unanswered questions of himself. He seems like a many of many mysteries, full of stories that have never been told. He seems to have an unexplained reason for everything he does. He sees the world differently than everyone else, but he does not brag about it or condescend. He prefers to spend his time alone in his room reading books and smoking. The children are always so curious as to what their father finds so interesting in these books he is always reading, and why he spends so much time alone. They seem to always go into his room just to figure out what is going on.
Young Boy
Confused - the boy is at a point in his life where he doesn't really know where his life is going. He isn't sure what the right thing to do is yet, and can't decide if he should get an education or stay and work with his father. He does not even understand why he does the things he does. He drops out of school to help get the boat ready, almost as if he needs to prove to his parents that he's a grown up, but as soon as he is confronted by his father about it, he goes back to school. This shows that he did not feel very strongly about dropping out of school because he did not even argue with his father about it, he just went back to school. The boy doesn't seem to know what he really wants.
Caring - the boy shows many times in the story that he has a huge soft spot for his father. He refuses to leave his father alone with his mother, to be forever considered a failure in her eyes for not retaining any of his children. He feels as though his father is deteriorating and his departure will only result in and end of his father. He decides that by staying with his father he can make him happy and make his mother happy with the man. He sacrifices his own education to save his father, and his mother tells him "You have given added years to his life". The boy has given his father a reason to keep going, and I think this satisfies him more than getting an education ever would because he loves his father so much.
Ignorant - the boy's ignorance is typical of a child. He sees everything from the perspective of a child, so obviously he is not going to understand the real meaning behind everything. His innocence protects him from understanding how his father really feels about his lifestyle. His ignorance prevents him from seeing the fact that his father is actually a very lonely, depressed man. As he grows up, this does change. His ignorance begins to fade, and he starts seeing things how they really are. For example, when he says "And I saw then, that summer, many things that I had seen all my life as if for the first time" he is stating that his ignorant perspective is gone and he finally sees the truth behind his father.
11. Although there are not many, there are a few similes used in The Boat. An example of a great simile used is when the boy describes his father's bedroom by saying "Still the room remained, like a rock of opposition
in the sparkling waters of a clear deep harbour". This simile is very effective in describing how visibly different his father's bedroom is from the rest of the house. It easily shows how the rest of the house is so clean like the sparkling waters of a clear deep harbour, but his father's room is like a rock of opposition, meaning it is dirty and the complete opposite of sparkling water, or a clean house.
12. Once again, there are not many metaphors used in The Boat, but the ones that are used are very effective in deeply describing an image. When the author wants to describe the cigarettes in the ashtray beside the man's bed, he says "At such times only the grey corpses on the overflowing ashtray beside my bed bear witness to the extinction of the latest spark and silently await the crushing out of the most recent of their fellows." Clearly, there are not grey corpses beside his bed. He is referring to the remains of his cigarettes, the ashes and the burnt out cigarette butts that are in his ashtray. He describes them as being able to see the ending of a spark and the crushing of their fellow cigarettes. Clearly, cigarettes can not see. He is trying to get the point across that he is alone in his room, smoking many cigarettes just like his father. The fact that the ashes of cigarettes are the only things that witness the end of the next cigarette is meant to emphasize his loneliness. This is a very effective metaphor.
These are excellent, thorough, well written and complete answers at a very high level of understanding. The ONLY way you could improve them is with more constant use of specific references to the story to support your opinions and ideas. Literally, including page numbers...
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