The Lost Salt Gift of Blood

by

Alistair MacLeod

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Themes and Colors
Distance and Alienation Theme Icon
Cultural Heritage and Identity Theme Icon
The Passage of Time Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Lost Salt Gift of Blood, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Passage of Time Theme Icon

In “The Lost Salt Gift of Blood,” journeys are almost always futile and doomed to failure, whether in the case of a local dog being unable to find a stick or the narrator being unable to connect with his son after traveling 2,500 miles to see him. MacLeod focuses particularly on the inevitable journey through time, passing from youth to age. Although the story suggests that growing older leads to loss and sorrow, it ultimately affirms that, in the possibility for healing, peace, and the nurturing of the next generation, it is not without its rewards.

MacLeod initially depicts the journey through time—aging, becoming more fragile, and losing one’s children as they become adults—as profoundly sad and burdensome. Rather than satisfaction or self-confidence, aging instills embarrassment, loneliness, and regret. For example, while the narrator and the local boys are walking from the harbor, the narrator is “wheezing and badly out of breath. So badly out of shape for a man of thirty-three […] The boys walk easily, laughing and talking beside me.” The boys’ youth reminds the narrator of the impact that passing time has had on him, embarrassing him. In addition, MacLeod describes one picture of the grandparents as “a rather jaunty young couple taken many years ago,” as well as a group “of the couple in the other picture; and one of them with their five daughters; and one of the five daughters by themselves […] roughly between the ages of ten and eighteen.” One of the things marking the photograph as old seems to be the contrast between the couple’s “rather jaunty” cheerfulness then and their attitudes now. The grandfather emphasizes this by saying “ ‘We be all alone […] All our other daughters married and far away,’” indicating that passing time has contributed to the couple’s isolation from their loved ones. Finally, the songs the grandparents and John sing tie the passage of time irrevocably to loss and sorrow, as in “ ‘They’re like the stars on a summer’s morning / First they’ll appear and then they’re gone.’” One song concludes by summarizing this theme: “ ‘And on this earth in grief and sorrow / I am bound until I die.’” The passage of time is a pointless journey and a tragedy, one that cannot be escaped.

Yet MacLeod doesn’t leave the reader without hope. Instead, he demonstrates that the passage of time can, under some circumstances, be valuable, healing, and gladdening. His description of the setting affirms the positive aspects of passing time. The harbor is “like a tiny, peaceful womb nurturing […] life,” suggesting the beauty of a new generation following the old. Also, survival and permanence, elsewhere reasons for grief, become emblems of hope and courage. The houses, “frame and flat-roofed […] cling to the rocks […] their bright colours […] buoyantly brave in the shadows,” and even nails are “defiantly optimistic” and “buoyantly yet firmly permanent.” Later on, the grandfather observes that “John here has the makings of a good fisherman […] He and the dog are already out along the shore and back before I’ve made tea,” soon after the reader learns that the grandfather has helped John repair his own lobster traps. Here, generational change becomes productive, both in economic terms and in terms of emotional connection. Fishing also comes into play in another positive depiction of the passage of time, when the narrator comments that “it will indeed be a good day for the fishing and this wind eventually will calm.” MacLeod suggests that, though the journey through time can lead to pain and loneliness, it will also always lead to eventual peace. Lastly, an event that bookends the beginning and end of the story demonstrates the capacity of time and progress forward to heal, rather than harm. At the beginning, the narrator learns that “one of [the boys] used to have a tame seagull at his house, had it for seven years […] It died last week,” and, as he is leaving the village at the conclusion of the story, he sees that the boys “are carrying something that looks like a crippled gull. Perhaps they will make it well.” Although one seagull has reached the end of its life, another has appeared, and will begin a new life in good hands.

MacLeod ends the story as the narrator is preparing to board another flight “even farther into the heartland.” He is returning to where he began, without his son, yet the ending is not wholly tragic. Like the passage of time, his journey home is both melancholy, faced with the happiness of another man and his family, and offering the potential for comfort and healing. The airport terminal is “strangely familiar,” and the “heartland” is, clearly, a place that he loves.

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The Passage of Time ThemeTracker

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The Passage of Time Quotes in The Lost Salt Gift of Blood

Below you will find the important quotes in The Lost Salt Gift of Blood related to the theme of The Passage of Time.
The Lost Salt Gift of Blood Quotes

One of them used to have a tame seagull at his house, had it for seven years. His older brother found it on the rocks and brought it home. His grandfather called it Joey. […] It died last week and they held a funeral about a mile away from the shore where there was enough soil to dig a grave. Along the shore itself it is almost solid rock […] It’s the same with people, they say. All week they have been hopefully looking […] for another seagull but have not found one.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), John, John’s Friends
Related Symbols: Gulls
Page Number: 123-124
Explanation and Analysis:

“John here has the makings of a good fisherman,” says the old man. “He’s up at five most every morning when I am putting on the fire. He and the dog are already out along the shore and back before I’ve made tea.”

“When I was in Toronto,” says John, “no one was ever up before seven. I would make my own tea and wait. It was wonderful sad. There were gulls there though, flying over Toronto harbour. We went to see them on two Sundays.”

Related Characters: John (speaker), The Grandfather (Ira) (speaker), The Narrator, Jennifer
Related Symbols: Gulls
Page Number: 128-129
Explanation and Analysis:

All three of them begin to sing, spanning easily the half-century that touches their extremes. The old and the young singing now their songs of loss in different comprehensions. Stranded here, alien of my middle generation, I tap my leather foot self-consciously […] The words sweep up and swirl about my head. Fog does not touch like snow yet it is more heavy and more dense. Oh moisture comes in many forms!

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), John, The Grandfather (Ira), The Grandmother
Related Symbols: Fog
Page Number: 130
Explanation and Analysis:

I stand and bend my ear to hear the even sound of my one son’s sleeping. […] I hesitate to touch the latch for fear that I may waken him and disturb his dreams. And if I did, what would I say? Yet I would like to see him in his sleep this once and see the room with the quiet bed once more […]

Related Characters: The Narrator, John, Jennifer
Page Number: 137
Explanation and Analysis:

Once, though, there was a belief held in the outports, that if a girl would see her own true lover she should boil an egg and scoop out half the shell and fill it with salt. […] In the night her future husband or a vision of him would appear […] But she must only do it once.

It is the type of belief that bright young graduate students were collecting eleven years ago for the theses and archives of North America and also, they hoped, for their own fame.

Related Characters: The Narrator, Jennifer
Page Number: 138
Explanation and Analysis: