52 pages • 1 hour read
Carl DeukerRunner
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Tiny Dancer
The Tiny Dancer symbolizes precarity. It’s not a safe, stable home. Chance doesn’t want to be there, and living in the sailboat makes him feel hopeless. He describes the place as an “old, weather-beaten thirty-foot sailboat” (34). He adds, “[I]t’s a lousy place to live. It’s so small that my dad and I can hardly turn around without bumping into each other” (35). Chance’s dad contributes to the precarity. Like the sailboat, his dad is unpleasant. He doesn’t abuse Chance, but he’s not reliable or trustworthy. Chance connects his dad to the sailboat; together, they represent a repellent, stagnant existence. The sailboat isn’t going anywhere, and neither is Chance’s dad. For Chance, hope means escaping the boat and his father. The dad notes the precarious situation when he tells Chance, “I guess there isn’t a helluva lot for you to stay for, is there?” (165).
The precarity represented by the boat pushes Chance into another precarious situation as a smuggler. As he must keep suspicious red packages on the boat, he increases the boat’s precarity. Now, the boat isn’t unsafe because of his father—it’s insecure because of Chance. Yet if Chance’s dad didn’t make the boat unstable in the first place, then Chance wouldn’t have felt the pressure to accept the “easy money.” The boat then becomes literally precarious when the terrorists seize it. Yet the precarious boat allows Chance’s dad to showcase his courage. He sacrifices his life and keeps the precarious boat from killing and harming countless people.
Seattle
Seattle is the 18th most populous city to date in the United States, and Deuker uses imagery to give the reader a map of the city and its components. The reader can see Puget Sound, Golden Gardens Park, the boats, and the trains. In the context of September 11 and the War on Terror, the multifaceted landscape makes it susceptible to attack. Natasha says, “There are zillions of boats floating around on the Sound and nobody keeps track of them. Terrorists could sail in and blow up whatever they wanted” (95). Chance’s dad says if he were a terrorist, he’d attack Ballard Locks, explaining, “It would be a disaster for the shipping industry and for tourism” (121).
Seattle is penetrable, and it symbolizes the insecurity of the United States. Like the nation, Seattle cannot guarantee people’s safety. At the newspaper meeting, Chance talks about the number of agencies around the ports before admitting that they still can’t check every boat that comes through. On a nationwide scale, the government can’t inspect everyone and everything. For the country to work, people, money, and commodities have to circulate with a degree of freedom, and the fluidity makes Seattle and the country vulnerable to terrorism.
Fathers and Sons
The motif of fathers and sons supports the theme of Escape from Hopelessness. When Chance sees his dad, he doesn’t see a promising person. About his dad, he says, “He wasn’t ever going anywhere on that crummy sailboat” (163). His dad is stagnant and a burden, and Chance joins the army to get away from home and his dispiriting existence.
The motif also supports the theme of The Intense Pressure of Money. Because of his dad, Chance feels the stress of earning a living. As his dad battles alcoholism and has trouble finding stable employment, the responsibility to financially support the two-person family falls on Chance. In other words, he has to worry about earning money because he can’t count on his dad. His dad’s failure to provide for his son pushes Chance to take the “easy money” and start “smuggling.”
The father-son motif bolsters Paranoia and the Loss of Security, as Chance and his dad are both aware of peril. Their relationship is rocky, but when they realize they have plastic explosives on their boat, they work together to prevent a tragedy. Chance’s dad takes control and sends Chance to Melissa’s dad. While Chance and Melissa’s dad notify authorities, Chance’s dad gets the boat away from people. The dad confronts the volatile world and becomes a source of inspiration. Instead of disconnecting his life from his dad, Chance bonds his life to his father, announcing, “I am going somewhere someday. I’m going for myself, and I’m going for my dad, too” (216). The death puts the dad in a positive light and makes Chance want to preserve his heroic memory.
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By Carl Deuker
