Sea Story

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The bottle acts as a symbol, of how the sea separates them as lovers. It starts out as loving and caring words, in her favorite beverage together with Harold’s great grandfather’s carnelian signet ring and lock of Harold’s hair, but ends up merely as garbage. The ocean and everything within devoured it, and Harold’s loving and caring words end up as a symbol of human corruption in the sea - far from the intended message. The sea signifies the change in communication happening between the two people, and how they are not made for each other.

The Masefield poem that Harold’s mother cites is reminiscent of Harold’s own life. She read those poems to Harold when he was a child, but it acts as both an opener and a closer to the story, when it is transferred to a bigger picture: “I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;” (Line 21). Harold also returns to Filey, or rather has a hard time leaving it, as the waves and the sea keep calling for him. “I must go down to the seas again” says Masefield, as Harold gets married and have a family, while he “strode along Filey Beach” (Line 131). That Masefield poem also sets the tone for his life and has a huge impact: “It was something set in motion by that poem, more than any other, which led him to follow his mother, to study English literature, and to teach.” (Line 27). The poem shapes his life, his work and decides his future wife and family. Had it not been for that poem, he might not have followed in his mother’s footsteps, but rather his fathers, and become a man of the ocean himself - which might have led him to the love of his life, Laura, instead of the reality.