57 pages • 1-hour read
Broken Harbour
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Themes
The Essential Animal Nature of Humans
Throughout Broken Harbour, French uses modern social and financial pressures to illustrate how humans resort to their more animal natures when under duress. The social context of the 2008 recession in Ireland is presented in the narrative as crucial to Pat and Jenny’s devolving mental states. Without the move to Brianstown, the loss of Pat’s job, his obsession with the animal, and Jenny’s isolation, their story may have gone differently. While the novel presents this argument, it also uses Scorcher’s first-person point of view to compare the current social decline with his memories of the past.
Through Scorcher’s point of view, French examines how the abandonment of social niceties and cultural norms opens the doors for more instinctive, reactionary, and animalistic behavior. In his estimation, the transition from human to animal is connected to historical and cultural context, and French juxtaposes the pressures faced by the Spains during the 2008 recession in Ireland against Scorcher’s memory of a better time. In an important passage right after he and Richie discover Conor’s lair, and with it, the possibility that the Spains were the targets of a random criminal, Scorcher meditates on the difference between the Ireland of his childhood and the present:
[B]ack when I was growing up […] people left their doors unlocked and helped old women with their shopping bags, and the murder rate was scraping zero. Sometime since then, we started turning feral. […] Everything that stops us being animals is eroding, washing away like sand, going and gone. The final step into feral is murder (101).
This passage emphasizes the disconnect between the past and the present, and French connects humans’ capacity to revert to their base instincts to a devolution of circumstance and the pressures that accompany modern living.
The novel also uses vivid animal imagery throughout the narrative to make its point. For example, when searching for how the suspect may have crossed the Spains’ path, Scorcher notes, “We were looking for the bright lure that had hooked something clawed and simian, brought it following them home” (108). In addition, the space in the abandoned house from which Conor watched the Spains is alternately referred to as his “hide,” “lair,” and “den” terms that refer to an animal’s home. These images evoke an understanding of the murder suspect as an animal: a lurking predator. Through this imagery, Scorcher’s point of view, and the pressures faced by the Spains, the novel suggests that “civilized” society is a thin veneer that obscures the animal instincts of humans, instincts that are returned to when we are faced with the unrelenting pressures of modern life.
The Question of Agency Versus Randomness
As a thriller, Broken Harbour is concerned with the main narrative question of who committed the murders and why. The context of these crimes means that the main conflict is whether the murderer is the “obvious” answer (Pat Spain as the most likely culprit of a murder-suicide), or from outside the house, and even outside the Spains’ lives. As Scorcher and Richie search for the crime’s perpetrator, the narrative explores the question of agency and responsibility through their differing perspectives.
Scorcher has been a part of the Dublin Murder Squad for years, and over that time, he has developed a firm perspective on the motives behind crime and murder. Part of Scorcher’s worldview is a firm belief that, for the most part, people reap what they sow. He suggests that in most instances, murder doesn’t need to “break into people’s lives. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it gets there because they open the door and invite it in” (30). However, his view that the victim usually bears some responsibility for their own death is challenged by this case. The Spains’ murders create internal conflict for Scorcher because, at least for some of the novel, he must entertain the possibility that the crimes were, in fact, completely random.
The question of agency and victimhood in murder is a source of conflict between Scorcher and Richie, who challenges Scorcher’s long-held beliefs. Scorcher suggests that “what you get out of life is mostly what you planted” and “your inner reality shapes your outer one” (190). He directly comments on the reasons for his view: “You have to believe that somewhere Along the way, somehow, most people get what they deserve […] or how do you get up in the morning? Believing in cause and effect isn’t a luxury. It’s an essential” (191). With this comment, Scorcher frames his ideas about murder victims as part of a larger understanding of the world, but with their current case, he is forced to admit that Richie has a point with his perspective that “[s]ometimes bad things just happen” (191).
The Spain family murders challenge Scorcher’s beliefs about murder victims, thus upsetting his larger perspective of the world. His belief that people are a result of their choices is at the core of his understanding, and he notes the cognitive dissonance he is experiencing when he muses, “Pat Spain followed the rules. He did everything people are supposed to do” (238), which, according to his perspective, should mean that he and his family are safe. With the Spain murder case, the narrative challenges Scorcher’s understanding of the world and the idea that murder victims have some responsibility for the crime committed against them.
Using Appearance to Shape Reality
Through Scorcher and the Spains, the novel explores the relationship between appearance and reality. These characters all understand the importance of appearances for social status and success, and through their perspectives, the narrative delves into the ways in which appearance shapes reality.
Scorcher shares his understanding of the relationship between appearance and reality early on in the novel. He personally believes in the importance of commanding respect by exercising control and maintaining a certain image, instructing Richie, “One of the ways you can take charge of where you’re going is by acting like you’re already there” (12). For him, the purpose of shaping reality through appearance is about his effectiveness as a detective; regarding his preference to drive a nice BMW, he notes, “[A] beat-up old Toyota would make us look like a pair of losers” (12). He argues that “if the bad guys see a pair of losers […] that makes it harder to break them down” and makes witnesses less likely to help them, decreasing their chance of success (12). For Scorcher, appearance has a direct impact on the way suspects, witnesses, and victims view him and how they act as a result. Based on his experience, appearance does work to define reality and ensure success.
The novel also illustrates how powerfully appearances can shape reality through the Spains’ story. Like Scorcher, Jenny recognizes the power of appearances to define reality, noting, “As long as people thought we were doing great, we had a chance of getting back up and doing great again. If people think you’re some kind of lunatic losers, they start treating you like lunatic losers, and then you’re screwed” (477). Through the Spains’ example, the novel highlights how that insistence on keeping up appearances fuels their isolation and paranoia, contributing to their family’s tragedy.
The importance of online message boards to the investigation also develops this idea: When Scorcher and Richie are talking to the computer technician, Richie expresses skepticism about the extent to which people lie online and Scorcher corrects his assumption: “If you can’t stand your own life, these days you go online and get a new one. If everyone you’re talking to believes you’re a jet-set rock star, then they treat you like one; and if that’s how everyone treats you, then that’s how you feel” (166). For Scorcher, appearance is related to his view of control, as appearance and attitude are within an individual’s power. For Jenny and Pat, appearances become crucial, in their minds, to working their way out of their current decline, leading to isolation as this decline becomes more visible. Although Scorcher shows how appearances can offer control and success, through the Spains’ experience, the novel highlights that the pressures involved in maintaining appearances can serve to sever people from society, revealing how the power to control appearances can also backfire, turning into the catalyst for isolation, paranoia, and eventually, tragedy.
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