Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Past the Shallows, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Brotherhood, Loyalty, and Hardship
Addiction and Abuse
Tragedy and Blame
Father Figures and Responsibility
The Duality of Nature
Summary
Analysis
Miles and Harry visit Aunty Jean, whose house is completely white and pristine. Miles is frustrated as Harry picks over his food, impatient to finish and leave so that there will be time to surf with Joe. After lunch, Harry accepts Aunty Jean’s offer of tea and she tells the boys that they both need a haircut. Miles realizes that he and Harry are stuck there.
Harry and Miles have a close bond, but Miles’s frustration with his little brother shows that they also have an element of sibling rivalry. Miles’s desire to rush through lunch to go surfing with Joe is a testament to how his relationship with his brother, in tandem with their shared love of the outdoors, is a universal escape from all of life’s unpleasant obligations.
Themes
As Aunty Jean cuts Harry’s hair, Miles thinks about how she is “like an old lady” and nothing like Mum, even though they were sisters. He resents his aunt and hopes that her arthritis causes her to suffer. Aunty Jean tells Miles to get a towel from the linen closet and inside he uncovers a big wooden box full of baby clothes and blankets that he has never seen before. As Aunty Jean talks on and on about selling Granddad’s house, Miles wonders about the box and keeps thinking about how the baby things were “perfect and clean and never used.”
Aunty Jean’s decision to contest Granddad’s will and sell the house has created a rift between her and her nephews. Her resentment surrounding the deaths of her father, sister, and husband has strained the bonds between the remaining members of the Curren family to the point that Miles dreads being around his aunt, which shows how fixating on blame can make tragic circumstances even worse. The unused baby clothes vaguely imply that Jean may have also experienced hardship related to infertility or miscarriage, further compounding the other tragedies she has experienced.
Themes
After Aunty Jean gives both the boys awful haircuts, Miles is amused at how they both look like “freshly shorn sheep.” Unlike Aunty Jean, Mum had believed Harry’s distinctive curly hair was lucky and never cut it short. Miles remembers that Dad had even brushed Harry’s hair years ago, and he vows that this is the last time he will let Aunty Jean give them haircuts.
Miles’s memory of Dad brushing Harry’s hair suggests that he was likely a typical, loving father before Mum and Uncle Nick passed away. Like Aunty Jean’s changed behavior, Dad’s current abusive, neglectful state seems to be rooted in tragedy.
Themes
