Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Childhood vs. Adulthood
Memory, Perception, and Reality
Knowledge and Identity
Fear, Bravery, and Friendship
Summary
Analysis
The narrator explains that when he entered the house through the back door, the moon was full, and it felt like summer. When he, Lettie, and Ginnie leave through the front door, the moon is a sliver and the night is cool and gusty. They walk up the lane until they reach the spot where the opal miner died. The narrator suggests they wake up Old Mrs. Hempstock, but Lettie explains that her gran might sleep for 100 years and that she’s impossible to wake. Ginnie shouts for the hunger birds, and the narrator feels as though all of this is his fault. He asks if they could just snip out the piece of his heart that the birds want, but Lettie reminds him that snipping is very difficult—even Old Mrs. Hempstock probably wouldn’t be able to do it without hurting the narrator.
Because the narrator has such a rudimentary grasp of how the Hempstocks’ world works and the rules guiding their magic, it’s understandable that he’d ask about “snip and cut” in regards to what’s going on. However, there are rules he doesn’t understand, given that he’s mortal and a child. When Lettie suggests that even Old Mrs. Hempstock isn’t as all-powerful as the narrator might like to think, it also implies that there’s no one in the world who can fix everything. Even people who Lettie says are true adults aren’t all-powerful.
Themes
The farm begins to glow gold, and the hunger birds—which look more real when they’re this close to the farm—land. Each bird is huge, but the narrator cannot remember what their faces actually look like. All he knows is that they look right at him. Ginnie tells them to leave, but the birds laugh and say that they must do what they’re made to do. They ask for the narrator, but Ginnie insults them and tells them again to go. Lettie reminds the hunger birds that the narrator is safe on their land—and one step onto this land will destroy the birds. The birds huddle and confer, and then one says Lettie and Ginnie are right—they can’t destroy the Hempstocks’ world—but the birds can still destroy the other world. With this, they start to tear into vegetation. Wherever they eat things, only static gray remains.
When the narrator can’t get a good look at what the hunger birds look like, it suggests again that they represent an iteration of adulthood that’s entirely beyond the narrator’s understanding. Even as the hunger birds represent this kind of adulthood, however, their petulant attempt to blackmail Ginnie and Lettie by destroying the narrator’s world reinforces the idea that there are no real adults. No one can be entirely mature and reasonable all the time—even if one is an ancient, magical bird.
Themes
The gray, the narrator realizes, is the “void” that exists underneath reality. The hunger birds devour a tree and a fox. Lettie insists that they should wake up Old Mrs. Hempstock, but Ginnie doesn’t know how. The birds begin to gulp at the sky. The adult narrator explains that he was a normal child—selfish and convinced he was the most important thing. However, he also understood that the hunger birds were going to destroy his entire world, all because of him. The narrator doesn’t want to die, but he can’t let the birds destroy everything. He drops Lettie’s hand and races for the property line. He hates himself, but he knows he must do this. The narrator stands and waits, and then something slams him into the mud.
Ginnie’s admission that she doesn’t know how to wake Old Mrs. Hempstock makes it clear that adults don’t know everything. She may exude maternal confidence and protectiveness, but she still has her limits. The narrator also doesn’t know everything, but he knows enough to understand that he has a responsibility to help the world, just like Lettie does. This moment of selflessness suggests that despite the narrator’s youth—or possibly, because of it—he’s capable of making this great sacrifice without fully realizing what the consequences will be.
Themes
The adult narrator says that at this point, he remembers a “ghost-memory.” He knows what it would’ve felt like when the hunger birds took his heart and ate it, but the memory “snips and rips, neatly.” The narrator hears Lettie tell him not to move. Suddenly, she’s on top of him, and the narrator feels the birds descend on Lettie. He hears her scream and feels her twitch. A voice says that this is unacceptable, but the narrator can’t place the voice. The voice asks why the birds have harmed her child and the narrator realizes it’s Old Mrs. Hempstock. Her voice doesn’t sound right—it’s more formal, the way royalty speaks. The hunger birds sound afraid as Old Mrs. Hempstock points out that the birds have violated laws.
The “ghost memory” that “snips and rips” suggests that this is possibly an instance of “snip and cut” taking place—but because the narrator wasn’t given a choice in the matter, he doesn’t necessarily remember what happened to him the way he remembers the incident of his father trying to drown him. When the hunger birds act as though they’re afraid of Old Mrs. Hempstock, it begins to create the sense that there is order and hierarchy in the Hempstocks’ world—and Old Mrs. Hempstock is at the top of that power structure.
Themes
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Ginnie gathers Lettie and the narrator in her arms. The hunger birds apologize as Ginnie cries. The narrator looks up at Old Mrs. Hempstock, but she looks different. Her hair is long and white, but she shines silver and stands straight. Her face is too bright. Old Mrs. Hempstock threatens various punishments for the birds, says she must attend to her children, and tells the birds to put everything back the way it was. The narrator realizes that he’s humming the song “Girls and Boys Come Out to Play” and reaches out to touch Lettie. Lettie doesn’t respond. Ginnie says, as though to no one, that the birds overstepped and would’ve destroyed the world without a second thought—but Lettie is outside their domain. The farm stops glowing.
Ginnie reinforces the idea that there’s a hierarchy and an order to the Hempstocks’ world when she says that Lettie is outside of the birds’ dominion. This suggests that the birds have a time, a place, and a function—but they became overzealous here and went too far. As the narrator starts to put all of this together, he begins to see that Old Mrs. Hempstock is more than her normal elderly appearance. She’s something powerful and likely takes the form of an old lady so that she can function better in the narrator’s world.
Themes
Old Mrs. Hempstock, back to her former appearance and voice, tells the narrator that he’s safe and that the hunger birds won’t come back to this world again. Old Mrs. Hempstock touches Lettie’s forehead, and the narrator finally realizes that Lettie sacrificed herself for him. He feels unspeakably guilty and asks if Lettie is dead. Old Mrs. Hempstock seems almost offended and says that Hempstocks don’t die. Ginnie explains that Lettie is hurt badly; she tells the narrator to get up, and she gathers Lettie’s body in her arms. The narrator apologizes, and though Old Mrs. Hempstock reassures him, Ginnie says nothing. Ginnie carries Lettie to the pond, wades in, and puts Lettie in the water.
When the narrator understands that Lettie sacrificed herself for him, he’s forced to reckon with the fact that he’s lost his one friend. Lettie may have behaved bravely and given the narrator his life to live, but this doesn’t make it any easier for the narrator to cope with. When he notices the way Ginnie treats him, he realizes that grief is difficult for adults as well. Ginnie is somewhat dismissive; as Lettie’s mother, she’s not entirely able to forgive the narrator for his role in what happened.
Themes
Waves rise up out of the pond and the narrator whispers an apology to Lettie. He can no longer see the other side of the pond—it’s a vast ocean. The water glows. Old Mrs. Hempstock assures the narrator that neither he nor the hunger birds killed Lettie; she’s just “been given to her ocean.” Someday, the ocean will give her back. The narrator asks if she’ll be the same, which makes Old Mrs. Hempstock laugh. She says that nothing is ever the same from one second to the next. The waves continue to grow and the narrator hears a rumble coming from hundreds of miles away. A huge wave appears in the distance and breaks over Lettie’s body. There’s no splash. When the narrator opens his eyes, there’s just a pond. Old Mrs. Hempstock is gone, and Ginnie says tells the narrator that it’s time for the him to go home.
Finally, the narrator understands—from his own perspective as a seven-year-old boy—why Lettie referred to the pond as an ocean: it is an ocean. Even if the narrator wasn’t able to see this when he was at the ocean’s edge before, he now is able to see what Lettie saw when she stood by the pond. Getting this opportunity to see what the ocean really is helps the narrator empathize with Lettie more and cements their relationship even further. Meanwhile, Mrs. Hempstock’s mysterious disappearance reinforces the narrator’s understanding that she’s extremely powerful, even if he still doesn’t fully comprehend this supernatural universe.
Themes
