Themes, Symbolism and
Imagery
This is another domestic
drama which explores familial
relationships and reveals the
tensions below the surface. It is a
story about things hidden, deception and distortion of the truth.
The imagery is drawn from fishing, the activity that the boy
and his father share. The father can be
seen as the “twisted hook”, the hook
that he baits with worms “so beautifully”,
with his talk of the promise of America.
The father has become “twisted”
by his disappointment with the harshness of his life and his financial
insecurity. The eels in the wire cages that
“slide over each other in their own oil”
or the “other fish” in the boat, are
sold off, like the father proposes to “sell off” his son, like the lost boys,
Luke, Michael and Sam, have been “sold” to bring in money for their
families. The bait, the “crawling worms”, that the boy sees just
before he goes out to set the night line, is his father’s apparent concern for
his future and his suggestion that a better life is to be found in
America. But these worms crawl “in darkness” – the darkness at the heart
of the father’s twisted soul.
Links
The Son, like Elizabeth in “Odours of Chrysanthemums” or Sandra in “The Darkness Out There”, is faced with a shocking revelation that “things are not as they seem”. “The
Darkness Out There” also has a dark secret at its heart and explores the
theme of hidden motivations
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