Summary Of The Boat By Alistair Macleod

Generally, at a certain point, everyone losses their loss of innocence to fully experience the reality of life. The carpet and the books are used by both authors to illustrate transformations in characters. The narrator of The Persian Carpet by Hanan Shaykh realizes the selfishness of her mother, when she chooses to lie and betray her daughter, causing her to experience a loss of innocence filled with anger and sadness. The narrator of The Boat by Alistair Macleod realizes the cruel truth of his father’s personal sacrifices when he feels obligated to stay and help his family on the boat, rather than pursuing an education, which was his father’s only desire, causing him a loss of innocence filled with sadness and anger when he could not practice that. The use of symbolism in both short stories

The carpet from The Persian Carpet is a significant symbol in representing the temporary happiness and innocent time in the narrator’s life. After the initial meeting with her mother and the rush of emotions that follow, the young narrator “stared down at the floor, and froze. In confusion she looked at the Persian Carpet spread on the floor, then gave her mother a long look.”(253) The narrator has a flashback to many fond childhood memories involving the Persian carpet, where she used to lie on it as she did her lessons.”(253) she would be “filled with happiness as the carpet’s bright colours once again brought the room back to life.”(254) The memories represent the love that was so closely tied to the carpet, as well as a golden time where nothing was wrong in the narrator’s life. Therefore, when her mother decides to make immature decisions, this happiness quickly transforms into the opposite, making the narrator cherish these joyful memories even more. Similarly, the books in The Boat also symbolize the temporary that is experienced by the father and his daughters, as it is