Ready Reference Treatise: The Shipping News

By Raja Sharma

“The Shipping News” by E. Annie Proulx was first published in 1993. The present novel was the result of several letters and comments that the author had received after the publication of her first novel, which according to the readers and reviewers seemed dark.

The present novel was an experiment in writing a novel with a happy ending. Annie Proulx decided to discover the happiness that resulted from the absence of pain and not because of the presence of euphoria. It was obviously a difficult task but she did succeed in creating the novel that got widely accepted and admired.

Ready Reference Treatise: The Shipping News
Copyright
Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: Plot Overview
Chapter Three: Characters
Chapter Four: Complete Summary
Chapter Five: Critical Analysis

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raja Sharma
• Release date: Aug 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310205293

Raja Sharma

Raja Sharma is a retired college lecturer.He has taught English Literature to University students for more than two decades.His students are scattered all over the world, and it is noticeable that he is in contact with more than ninety thousand of his students.

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Ready Reference Treatise: The Shipping News

Copyright

Ready Reference Treatise: The Shipping News

Raja Sharma

Copyright@2015 Raja Sharma

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Chapter One: Introduction

The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx was first published in 1993. The present novel was the result of several letters and comments that the author had received after the publication of her first novel, which according to the readers and reviewers seemed dark.

The present novel was an experiment in writing a novel with a happy ending. Annie Proulx decided to discover the happiness that resulted from the absence of pain and not because of the presence of euphoria. It was obviously a difficult task but she did succeed in creating the novel that got widely accepted and admired.

The book won both the Pulitzer Prize and the United States National Book Award. It also won several other literary awards.

The novel was adapted into a movie in the year 2001. The movie proved to be equally successful. The novel brought both name and fame to the author. It began to be discussed among the literary scholars and academicians.

Chapter Two: Plot Overview

Quoyle is the central character and protagonist of the story. He happens to be a thirty-six year old newspaper reporter. He is from New York State.

He happens to have fed up with his highly emotional and traumatic life. He eventually decides to move to Newfoundland to escape from his predicament.

The narrator informs that his parent never cared for Quoyle much to begin with. They eventually committed suicide.

Petal was Quoyle’s wife. She was his cruel, two-timing wife. She passed away in a car accident while she was on her way to Florida with another man.

His aunt is eventually able to convince Quoyle that he should go to Newfoundland to begin a new life. His aunt has so much wanted to go back to the home of her ancestry. Finally, Quoyle, his aunt, and his daughters move together.

Partridge is Quoyle’s friend. He finds a newspaper job for Quoyle in Killick-Claw, the town in Newfoundland where Quoyle has come to begin his new life.

Quoyle, his aunt, and the daughters reach their old family house. It is in a dilapidated condition and it urgently needs repairs.

Quoyle’s aunt is a highly energetic and capable woman. She immediately finds a person to help them repair the house. The aunt has a dog named Warren. She happens to have named the dog after the aunt’s old partner Irene Warren. Unfortunately, the dog dies.

Quoyle learns that four crusty characters, most of them old fishermen, run the newspaper in Killick-Claw.

The newspaper is famous for publishing its sexual abuse stories, sensationalized photos of car wreck, plagiarism and horrendous typographical errors.

Jack Buggit is the editor of the newspaper. He assigns Quoyle the shipping news and car wreck stories. Quoyle is frightened and terrified with the car wreck stories. These stories remind him of his late wife, Petal.

The people working in the newsroom have their own stories to tell. Nutbeem is said to be a foreign correspondent. He says that he has built his own Chinese junk and he is going to try to sail around the world on his own.

Dennis Buggit