Past the Shallows takes place amidst the awe-inspiring and often brutal seaside landscape of Bruny Island off the coast of Tasmania, Australia. The turbulent ocean waters and the rugged ecosystem of the island serve as both the means of the family’s livelihood as abalone fishermen and as ever-present, unreliable dangers. For Harry, Miles, and Joe Curren, the natural world is simultaneously a foreboding, almost mythical presence and a beloved outlet of escape from their troubled home life. The stunning yet perilous setting of the novel reflects humanity’s relationship with the environment more broadly. Parrett suggests that nature is both a comfort and a powerful threat for humans, while the natural world is wholly indifferent to the fates of the people who inhabit it.
As Harry, Miles, and Joe cope with the grief of Mum’s death and the trauma of their alcoholic father and dysfunctional family, each of the three brothers finds solace in a deep reverence and connection with nature. For Joe, the water is literally an escape from his painful upbringing, as he hand-carves a wooden boat to live on and sail around the world after he is uprooted from Granddad’s house. Miles is likewise drawn to the ocean, likening the surrounding cliffs to majestic “guardians standing tall” and acting as though he “could stay out in the water forever” even after his brothers have returned to shore. The ocean holds a sense of freedom and possibility for Joe and Miles, and the two brothers instinctively flee from Dad’s wrath to the beach where they spend hours surfing, fishing, and camping. Similarly, Harry finds joy and purpose through his connection to animals, often combing the beach for “treasures” and small creatures even though he is afraid of the water. He is also drawn to George Fuller’s dog Jake and is quick to befriend the animal, sneaking off to find respite from the loneliness of his house while Dad and Miles are gone at work. For all the boys, then, the natural world is a peaceful refuge from their otherwise chaotic lives.
Despite finding comfort in nature, the Curren brothers are also able to sense the immense power and enigmatic, ancient roots of Bruny Island. Although Harry, Miles, and Joe have grown up loving the beach, the wild indigenous landscape also poses a dangerous threat as it remains indifferent to the boys, who are small and insignificant in comparison. As the brothers have been raised on the island, they have developed a sense of reverence and fear toward its grandiosity. Abalone, the region’s main resource, symbolizes the generations of people who have lived and died on the island and serves as a reminder of humanity’s fragility, as they depend upon nature’s fickle cycles for their livelihood. Harry’s solo explorations in nature also make him acutely aware of this reality despite his young age, as holding an abalone shell in his hand makes him confront his own mortality and place in the grand scheme of life. He realizes that, much like Dad’s violent mood swings, nature is an incomprehensible, rampant force that impacts people’s lives without rhyme or reason. Harry marvels at the mysticism of his homeland, remarking that the island is “as old as the world.”
While the brothers grapple with this ongoing realization of Bruny Island’s power, they are intimidated by nature even as they find joy in its beauty. Harry is terrified of the water and made seasick by excursions on the family’s fishing boat, while Miles dreads the idea that he will one day have to venture into the dark, treacherous ocean to dive for abalone like his father. Despite their fondness for the surroundings they know and love, Harry and Miles both have an innate awareness of nature’s dark potential and know that they risk self-destruction every time they journey into the beauty of the island’s landscape. Nature is ultimately uncaring and indiscriminate in its actions, claiming Harry’s life as the little boy is thrown overboard and drowns in the icy cold waters of a winter storm.
Although the Curren brothers find emotional comfort and safety in nature, its duality as a mysterious, dangerous force remains at the forefront of their minds and highlights their willingness to risk self-destruction in order to find escape in Bruny Island’s environment. They value nature over their own lives, and they are willing to face their physical inferiority and human limitations through their love of surfing and exploring their precarious surroundings. The novel celebrates this sense of insignificance rather than fighting against it, advocating for a respectful attitude toward nature’s grandiosity and a healthy balance of fear, awe, and admiration.
Related Themes from Other Texts
The Duality of Nature ThemeTracker
The Duality of Nature 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.
Harry picked up an abalone shell, the edges loose and dusty in his hands. And every cell in his body stopped. Felt it. This place. Felt the people who had been here before, breathing and standing live where he stood. People who were dead now. Long gone. And Harry understood it, right down in his guts, that time ran on forever and that one day he would die.
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.
He used to feel sorry for the abs when he was young. The way they pulsed and moved in the tubs, sensing the bright light and heat. But he couldn’t think about them like that now. He was only careful not to cut or bruise them, because once abs started to bleed, they kept on bleeding until all the liquid inside was gone. They just dried up and died.
And if you didn’t know better, you’d think that no one lived here anymore. That all these places were abandoned. But people were in there somewhere, hidden and burrowed in. They were there.
It was fully formed, more than half a yard long, maybe only days away from being born. It would have survived if Jeff had just let it go, let it slide off the back of the boat. It had made it this far, battling its siblings, killing and feeding off them. Waiting. It would have been born strong, ready to hunt, ready to fight.
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.
But ultimately it wasn’t up to you. This ocean could hold you down for as long as it liked, and Miles knew it.
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.
Miles let the rip that ran with the bluff carry him. He enjoyed the ride, felt his hands slipping through the cool water, body floating free. And there was this feeling in him like when it had all just been for fun, the water.
And Miles loved that light.
It made the dark water sparkle, turned the white spray golden—made the ocean a giant mirror reflecting the sky. Even the leaves on the crack wattle shone in the light.
It made everything come to life.
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.
