Throughout numerous short stories in The Turning, the overall theme of the weight of the past is explored. Tim Winton masterfully wrote stories such as Aquifer, in which a young boy watched his bully drown, regretting it forever, and Small Mercies, where two exes sober up for their children. It gives insight on the narrator or character’s true feelings about the past and how much the past has followed them. Both stories exhibit symbols of water. For Aquifer, it is the swamp water that Alan dies in and later is pushed into everything through the water cycle. In Small Mercies, it is the pool where Dyson realizes he wants to sober up and bond with his child. Another theme of these stories is death. In Aquifer, when Alan dies it doesn’t sink in with him as a child, but comes back to haunt him. In Small Mercies, Fay’s abortion gives Dyson guilt, …show more content…
When he finally realizes his only son is feeling the same as he is, he decides to turn his life around. He does this while swimming, mindlessly in a pool. He feels too dirty to stay the same after his swim and decides he must change, if not for his sake then for the sake of his son. By moving back to Angelus with his son, he does this. When he is comfortably moved into Angelus, his ex girlfriend also returns. She wants to restart their easy, unhappy, relationship. He threatens her with the abortion she got when they had dated. It made him feel as guilty as he felt when it had originally happened, perhaps more now that he was older. The death of their unborn fetus, was a symbol of the weight of the past for Dyson. He would regret it forever, and time could not change that. Tim Winton’s book, The Turning, shows the weight of the past many different ways. Nearly every story touched on the theme. Aquifer and Small Mercies were two of those stories and he used the symbols of the water cycle, the pool, bones, and the abortion to do