After the deaths of his brother-in-law Uncle Nick and his wife Mum, Dad’s guilt and grief spiral into alcoholism and the subsequent abuse of his three sons, Harry, Miles, and Joe. Much like the often-volatile natural landscape of Bruny Island where the Curren family lives, Dad’s unpredictable, menacing behavior is a looming source of terror for his three boys. His presence is confusing, particularly for Miles and Harry, as they respect him as the family’s provider and head of household yet resent the fear and instability he brings to their lives. Through Dad’s character, Parrett illustrates how substance abuse can distort otherwise normal people into monstrous versions of themselves, and how the effects of addiction are far-reaching, extending well beyond the addict.
Although Dad is a predominantly negative force in his sons’ lives, his sporadic tender moments throughout the novel show that he is not wholly, inherently evil. Rather, he is a complex, deeply flawed individual who is plagued by addiction and tortured by the demons of his past wrongdoings. Dad is implied to have once been an involved, caring parent, as evidenced by Miles’s memory of his father taking care of Harry and brushing his hair when he was younger. While Dad’s current patterns of cruelty could potentially be attributed to an innate character flaw, this dramatic shift in his demeanor suggests that there was a time when he genuinely cared for his family.
However, after Martin, one of Dad’s fishermen, is injured and must take a leave of absence from working on the fishing boat, Dad’s behavior progressively becomes more turbulent and criminal. Under the sinister influence of his other fisherman, Jeff, Dad begins frequenting the local pub more often and grows increasingly more neglectful and sporadically violent toward his sons. This progressive moral dissolution shows the complexity and malleability of Dad’s character as he falls deeper into his alcoholism. Even in the midst of this mistreatment, Dad still shows slivers of compassion and concern for his sons, as when he apologetically brings Miles fish and chips for dinner after an alcohol-fueled incident of violent abuse. This rare display of care further suggests that Dad is a nuanced character beneath his addiction.
The transformative power of Dad’s alcoholism has a detrimental impact not only his own psyche, but on the entire structure of the Curren family. The fear of Dad’s brutality redefines Harry, Miles, and Joe’s lives, which were once safe and content, and all three boys are driven toward various outlets of escapism. When Joe is thirteen, he goes to live with Granddad after Dad breaks his arm in a fit of drunken rage. The fear and trauma Joe experiences at the hands of his father affect him to the point that he hand-carves a boat in hopes of leaving Bruny Island. The great lengths to which Joe is willing to go in order to escape Dad’s mistreatment illustrate the profound, lasting impact of his father’s addiction-fueled abuse.
Without their older brother in the house to watch over them, Harry and Miles are left to fend for themselves. Both boys’ lives are fundamentally defined by Dad’s abuse as they adapt to his unpredictable mood swings and unreliability, too afraid to ask their father for food or even to cross his path to use the bathroom in their own house. Amidst this instability, Harry and Miles both search for sources of escape from their home life. Miles’s love of surfing and Harry’s relationships with George Fuller and his dog Jake are attempts to fill the void left by their father’s neglect and the subsequent collapse of their family. While the two younger boys can’t carve a boat and sail away like Joe can, they clearly long for escape from their father and yet are forced to center their lives around him and his addiction.
Although once a typical father figure, Dad’s alcoholism eats away at him until he becomes a different person altogether—a warped, twisted version of his former self, who instills a constant sense of dread in his three sons. Dad’s abuse of Harry, Miles, and Joe shows the detrimental effects that addiction can have on the family structure. Though the silver lining is faint, Dad’s relentless abuse ultimately serves as the catalyst for the three boys’ unbridled thirst for adventure in the outside world.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Addiction and Abuse ThemeTracker
Addiction and Abuse Quotes in Past the Shallows
Water that was always there. Always everywhere. The sound and the smell and the cold waves making Harry different. And it wasn’t just because he was the youngest. He knew the way he felt about the ocean would never leave him now. It would be there always, right inside him.
There were things that no one would teach you—things about the water. You just knew them or you didn’t and no one could tell you how to read it. How to feel it. Miles knew the water. He could feel it. And he knew not to trust it.
“Don’t you get stuck here with your dad,” he said. “Don’t you let him…You’re too young to be out there working, Miles. It’s not right.”
Miles felt the words sink down right inside him.
“You’ve had it rough enough,” he said.
Maybe that’s why Joe and Miles liked it so much. And he knew that Granddad would have taken him. It was just that he was too little, too small to go, when Granddad had been alive. And if Granddad hadn’t died then he definitely would have taken Harry fishing, too. And it would have been good, like this was.
He lived for this, for these moments when everything stops except your heart beating and time bends and ripples—moves past your eyes frame by frame and you feel beyond time and before time and no one can touch you.
Then they heard Dad yelling from inside. Yelling at them, at everyone. Yelling at no one. And Miles could hear the words. They came through the brown walls, through the air, and cracked open the night: “I never wanted you.”
And it nearly made Harry cry now, the way Miles’s eyelid was all purple and cut—the bruise on the side of his face coming up bad. Harry put his hand in his pocket and felt for the sock that held his leftover money. He pulled it out.
“You should take this,” he said. “You might need it.”
Miles shook his head. “You keep it,” he said and he tried to smile.
…Harry didn’t see him come back. There was just the backpack with some clothes left by the door of the trailer and inside, near the top, were some chocolates and the bright orange dart gun from his Bertie Beetle goodie bag.
He just kept starting at Harry. And his hand moved away from Harry’s hair, moved down to the string around his neck. And he cupped it in his palm—a white pointer’s tooth.
“It’s his,” he said, and his face went pale. “His.”
He let the tooth go. He stared down at Harry.
“She was leaving, because of him. Because of you.”
There was a black emptiness inside him and it was all that he could see. He tried to imagine a fire in the darkness, and at first it was just one blue flame too small to feel. But he willed it on, felt the first flicker of warmth as it grew. Then it raged, turned into a ball of fire, orange and red and hungry. It devoured his stomach, moved up to his lungs, his back. Moved into his heart. He shared it with Harry through his skin.
He had been drifting for a lifetime and his mind had lost its way. It was dissolving and he had forgotten about Harry, forgotten about all the things that came before. There was only this vastness, the swing of a giant pendulum—water receding then flooding back. And he was part of it. Part of the deep water, part of the waves. Part of the rocks and reefs along the shore.
He listened to Joe talk about all the places they would go, the tropical islands and clear warm water, the big bright lights of new cities. The free open space of ocean. And he knew that Joe was going to take him with him, now. Wherever he went. He leaned his head down against his brother’s shoulder. And he let himself cry.
Out past the shallows, past the sandy-bottomed bays, comes the dark water—black and cold and roaring. Rolling out an invisible path, a new line for them to follow.
To somewhere warm.
To somewhere new.
