Message In A Bottle

Nicholas Sparks employs a frame story, a literary technique in which a main narrative presents one or more secondary stories inside it, creating a story within a story. The frame story provides context for the inner narrative(s), introducing and concluding the text, and surrounds the inner story. This frame story introduces the protagonist, Theresa Osborne, whose present emotional state foreshadows the novel’s bittersweet ending, as does the narrator’s descriptions of the setting. They say, “In another place, in another time, she would have felt the majesty of the beauty around her, but as she stood on the beach, she realized that she didn’t feel anything at all” (5). Her emotionlessness, especially in the face of such natural beauty, suggests that Theresa has experienced some trauma or could be grieving a significant loss. Further, the narrator describes the ocean as looking “like liquid iron,” (5) a simile that draws attention—via the connotation of the metal—to strength as well as harshness. This description helps to establish the novel’s mood and suggests that Theresa’s story will consist of difficult events and the personal strength she needs to survive them. Thus, the frame story helps to establish the mood, introduce the main character, and contextualize the flashback that comprises most of the novel as occurring two years earlier.

The Prologue also establishes the symbolism of the glass bottle. The narrator says that “like all bottles, it was fragile and would break if dropped a few feet from the ground. But when sealed properly and sent to sea, as this one was, it became one of the most seaworthy objects known to man” (1). On the one hand, then, the glass bottle in which Garrett sends his letter to sea—the bottle Theresa finds—is delicate and easily broken; on the other hand, it travels many miles in a wind-tossed ocean, bobbing along in currents and tides, and it remains whole. In this way, the glass bottle can be interpreted as a symbol of Theresa herself: a woman who may feel broken and dispirited in the moment but who has clearly survived something harrowing and life-changing. 

The narrator describes the course of the bottle as “unpredictable” and says it “contain[s] a message that would change two people forever, two people who would otherwise never have met, and for this reason, it could be called a fated message” (3). Two bottles dropped in the exact same spot in the ocean can, in fact, end up in two wholly different locations, as the narrator notes. In this way, the bottle symbolizes both the protagonist and Life’s Unpredictability, as life is volatile and often fickle, and seemingly random events can change one’s life unexpectedly and irrevocably. The narrator’s description of the bottle’s message as “fated” also suggests how much Theresa will be affected by its contents and connects the bottle, via symbolism, to life. The word choice also implies, through connotation, the inevitability—and perhaps, tragedy—of the events to follow.

The first chapters contain exposition that helps the reader get up to speed quickly. Exposition is a kind of writing that reveals important details needed to understand the setting, characters, and context, preparing the reader for the plot. In Message in a Bottle, the exposition presents information about Kevin, Theresa’s son; David, Theresa’s ex-husband, who cheated on her and whose betrayal significantly impacts her sense of self and belief in true love; and Theresa’s best friend and editor, Deanna, who brings her to Cape Cod in the flashback. The exposition also presents Theresa as a busy woman, a working professional, and a single mom with a full schedule, something that makes her feel “worried that her life was slipping past her” (13). She has become a creature of habit and routine, making each day feel “exactly like the last,” so much that she cannot “remember the last spontaneous thing she’d done” (16). Theresa misses intimacy but does not know if she possesses the capacity to love again as she loved David. Importantly, she “still dreamed about falling in love with someone” and about being the “only [person] who mattered” (18) to another human being. Stepping out of her comfort zone and going on vacation with Deanna and Brian presents a rare opportunity “to experience freedom again” (19) and removes Theresa from her everyday routine and comfort zone. This helps the reader to understand, then, that her decision to “charge into the unknown” (65) after reading three of Garrett’s letters to Catherine is atypical and very much out of character for her, pointing toward Life’s Unpredictability and The Healing Power of Love.