Sacrifice In Macleod's The Boat

The most prominent theme I noticed about this story "The Boat" by Macleod was about sacrifice. The speaker is a young boy, youngest of his siblings and only son and tells a tale of his family dynamic, the importance of the sea and fishing. As the speaker ages, his thoughts develop a deeper and honest meaning as he becomes more involved in his surroundings and preconceived destiny. The narrator evolves by becoming more attuned to the reality and environment surrounding him. How the sea is more than a mysterious beautiful thing but holds a significant danger- eventually taking his fathers life. As the speaker grows older, he notices how his sisters want more out of life than “darning socks and baking bread” (322) and begins to develop an understanding that a fisherman’s lifestyle was not the desired outcome of his father. Instead, the father admits to how he “always wanted to go to university” (324). As well, the speaker notices how bitter and angry his mother truly is towards her husband and later, daughters and son. The mother is both bitter and resentful in her life and towards her family. The mother begins by being described as a neat, tidy and hardworking woman to one that slaps her daughter and continuously distances from them for their fraternizing with those who are not “[her] people”, the natives to the sea (319). Each of the sisters

What I conclude, is that the speaker fulfilled his father’s hope for him and perhaps continued with school to have a promising labour-free career of comfortability. By choosing to live for himself, the speaker was disowned by his mother for not following in the footsteps of the sea. Thus, the speaker grew from a young boy who followed his parent’s wants and instructions to a man who thought and chose for