Loss Of The Future In Annie Proulx's 'The Shipping News'

No one has lived a perfect past, but the way we go about when dealing with the past determines the fate of our future. One’s painful past is often an impediment on their physical and mental state for the rest of one’s life, ultimately resulting in a loss of any future potential and sense of self-worth. In Annie Proulx’s novel, The Shipping News, the main character, Quoyle, experiences an abusive past of which he believes he’s at fault for. As Quoyle’s journey through adulthood is expressed in this novel, Proulx demonstrates the pain of the past lingers on one’s present ultimately devaluing one’s sense of self-worth and clouding their view of any positive future, but revisiting the past and confronting the issues at hand will relieve this existing pain.
Quoyle’s abusive past, which was inflicted upon him by Petal and his father, led him to devalue his self-worth. When Petal, Quoyle’s abusive wife, died he was unable to move on from her death. He couldn’t directly bring the news to his two children, Bunny and Sunshine. Instead, he simply told them she was in a deep sleep. Although Quoyle was being a protective father by considering his children’s feelings if they had been told their mom died, he also responded this way subconsciously because he, himself, couldn’t accept the fact Petal was dead. He believed they …show more content…
Throughout Annie Proulx’s novel, The Shipping News, Quoyle faces his past and solves the issues at hand in order to relieve the burden weighing him down from experiencing what the future has to offer. Although we will always reflect upon memorable moments from the past whether they’re good or bad, we must not allow them to affect our mental and physical state in a negative