Annie Quoyle's The Shipping News By Annie Proulx

621 Words2 Pages
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Recommended: Narratives written about depression

The protagonist, Quoyle, in the book entitled “The Shipping News” was taught his entire life that he was a failure. He was an overweight, loveless man with crippling self-image and mental issues. The author of the novel, Annie Proulx, intricately illustrated Quoyle’s depressing early life in the opening chapters of the book. Living in Mockingburg, New York, the only relationship Quoyle ever had been in failed horribly, both of his parents simultaneously committed suicide, and he was unable to find himself a stable job. Quoyle saw a substantial amount of abuse from his parents, and later from his wife. This miserable, harsh lifestyle was not uncommon in Quoyle’s family, for his ancestors wereknown to be cold-hearted criminals, murderers and failures. While it seemed so easy for Quoyle to succumb to the pressure and settle for what he had in life, he decided to start from scratch, moving back to his ancestor’s home in Newfoundland. Quoyle was able to put his depressing past behind him and transform his life, breaking away from his submissive, weak-willed personality.
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