40 pages • 1-hour read
Message In A Bottle
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Symbols & Motifs
Glass Bottle
The glass bottles in which Garrett sends his messages to Catherine (and one to Theresa) represent hope and serve as a motif that demonstrates Life’s Unpredictability. A glass bottle could shatter in an instant if dropped, but it also becomes an incredibly seaworthy vessel that can withstand all kinds of natural forces once it is in the water. The bottles Garrett uses are, of course, “fragile,” and their “course was unpredictable” (1). Their trajectory can vary wildly based on the weather, currents, whether they are picked up by fishing boats and cast back into the water in different places, and so on. Theresa finds one such bottle on Cape Cod, while another woman found one in Virginia. Therefore, the irregular and rather arbitrary paths each bottle takes to its final destination echo the twists and turns with which life presents the characters.
As a symbol of hope—Garrett’s hope that he can manage his sense of loss and that Theresa will forgive him, and Theresa’s hope that she can find a love like the one Garrett writes about—the glass bottles’ fragility and strength also resonate. Hope can feel fragile, just as Theresa hopes she can move on from David’s betrayal, though she is rather cynical to start, but it can also be very strong, as in the end, when her experiences with Garrett have proven to her that she can find love again after great loss.
Photos
The photos of Catherine that Garrett keeps around his house constitute a motif that highlights The Power of Memory. Catherine’s presence in Garrett’s home, even though she never lived in this house, is significant. The pictures of her demonstrate the way she is never very far from his thoughts; in fact, they suggest that he actively wants to keep remembering her so that she feels present, still there with him. No matter where he turns, Garrett is sure to see a picture of Catherine, and this serves as a reminder of her life, their marriage, and his grief.
When Garrett dreams that his house is flooding during a horrific storm, he is very concerned about saving her picture: “He had to get her picture and the other items he kept in the end table. […] He couldn’t leave without them” (213). Though he can hear Theresa calling him from outside, and he’s aware that he could lose his life if he doesn’t move quickly, by the time he decides to leave these objects behind, Theresa is no longer there. Garrett “realized that if he tried to save the things from his past, he might not make it out at all. But was it worth it?” (214). Ultimately, he decides that it is not worth his life to save these items, but the fact that he pauses to question it and that it took so long for him to come to a decision speaks volumes. This shows how present Catherine remains in his life, how central she remains even three years after her death, so much so that he nearly sacrifices his life just to save her picture, ring, and a couple of cards. The strength of his memory of her is barely outweighed by his love for Theresa.
Happenstance
The name of the boat that Garrett and Catherine restore is a motif that emphasizes Life’s Unpredictability. Though characters often attribute certain events to destiny, the text contains much more evidence that chance rather than fate is life’s controlling force. “Happenstance” is a synonym for accident, coincidence, chance, and even fluke. These words can be used to characterize a significant number of the text’s events. Even though it happened before the text began, Catherine’s accident looms large in Garrett’s life and certainly seems like happenstance given the many ways it might have been averted if circumstances had been even very slightly different. Likewise, Theresa finding Garrett’s message in a bottle is sheer luck; she doesn’t live in Cape Cod and was there on vacation, out early in the morning for a jog prior to the arrival of other beachgoers. The bottle could have been broken or carried by the current to some other place altogether, as demonstrated by the two other bottles that washed up in Virginia and New York. Then, when Deanna suggests printing the letter in Theresa’s column, Theresa initially rejects the idea; it’s only later that she changes her mind. Running this letter in the column leads Theresa to locate two additional letters—also the effect of chance—and the three letters together give her and Deanna enough information to identify and locate Garrett.
Finally, Garrett’s death on board the Happenstance is another fluke. He is an expert sailor, but he happens to misread the storm’s violence and speed. Further, that he dies while sending his final letter to Catherine after deciding to let her go and move on with Theresa is ironic and unexpected. The plot is full of such unexpected moments, many of which can be described as “happenstance,” which makes the boat’s name particularly apt.
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