A Focus on the Character Quoyle in the Film "The Shipping News"

Quoyle Passage Analysis The author describes a man’s life throughout the progression of the passage. A man’s life, beginning with a difficult childhood and ending with loneliness, is told using various similes and metaphors, a highly-descriptive diction, and antithesis.

Quoyle’s entire life is almost entirely chronicled by the author, who uses imagery-filled diction related to struggling to accurately depict Quoyle’s upbringing. The author opens by describing Quoyle’s gut, “roaring with gas and cramp,” euphemisms for the pain and the hunger he undoubtedly felt.

Later throughout the university, “he camouflaged torment with smiles and silence.” The author’s use of an antithesis to starkly contrast Quoyle’s reactions to the torment not only accentuates the difference between the action and reaction but also bolsters the resilience of Quoyle’s character. Despite his difficulties, throughout life, which is is highlighted by the author’s specific word choice, after Quoyle “survived childhood” and “stumbled through” the middle of his life, he learned to “separate his feelings…counting on nothing.

” The author’s use of keywords, euphemisms, and antithesis supports the perception of Quoyle as a character who has suffered greatly, assumes nothing for granted, and accepts himself and what has been done to him.

After the author’s initial depiction, summarizing and skimming portions of Quoyle’s life, Quoyle’s relationship with his father is exposed. The author’s usage of similes and repetition, through the eyes of a critical father, only further qualifies Quoyle’s resistance and also amplifies his resilient character despite his raising.

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Spawning from Quoyle’s lack of ability to swim, his father began to see other failures, such as “speak[ing] clearly” or lacking “in ambition and ability,” and “multiply like an explosion of virulent cells.” With extremely dark regard for his son’s abilities, seen through the comparison to disease, the father’s portrayal of his physical attributes is filled with more elements of figurative language that are just as dark, as well as insulting diction. Regarded as having a “head shaped like a Crenshaw,” and a “freakish shelf jutting from the lower face,” the author portrays Quoyle as having few attractive physical features, likely contributing to his final, and persistent, state of melancholy.