comment on theme

From the opening of the novel to the end, Shelby Van Pelt explores the impact of loss on the human psyche and associates it with the concomitant emotion of loss. Through skillful character development, the theme of suffering through loss is established as universal to the human experience, creating a storyline that is as instructive as it emotionally connective. Loss and grief are emotions that overtake a person’s mind and body, numbing them to the present moment, and causing them to live in a compartment of their own suffering. At the outset of the novel, Tova is working her nightshift at the aquarium and is constantly thinking of her deceased son Erik, who died 30 years earlier. “On Tova’s mantel at home, there’s a photo of Erik, perhaps eleven or twelve at the time, grinning wildly as he straddles the statue’s back, one hand aloft like he’s about to throw a lasso.” “[She] touches the sea lion’s cold head as she passes, quelling the urge to wonder yet again how Erik might’ve looked now” (5). She’s so distracted, she doesn’t notice the escaped octopus on the floor until she almost picks it up, mistaking it for “a sweater”(7). “But then the clump moves. A tentacle moves” (7). Lost in her unhealed grief, Tova is going through the motions of life without really being there. As the narrative unfolds, it becomes clear to the reader that Tova has isolated herself from her friends and the world around her to keep the pain of her loss at bay.