In Seascraper, Thomas Flett works at the only trade he has ever known: shrimp fishing. His daily labor on the seaside is the legacy of his grandfather’s work as one of Longferry’s many “shankers.” By the age of 13, Thomas was out with his grandfather, learning how to manage the horse, cart, and baskets and to avoid the dangers of the beach’s sinkpits and tides. What’s more, the novel clarifies that this was something Thomas himself desired: “[H]e would beg his ma to let him do, believing it to be a rite of passage” (34). Now 20, however, Thomas has found that what was “supposed to be a weekend job” has become an apparent life sentence with significant drawbacks (34).

Part of the problem is that the trade no longer exists in the way it once did. By the 1960s, most shrimp fisherman have either found other professions or mechanized their fishing. Thomas is thus the only traditional shanker left, working his horse alone on the beach at low tide each day. This isolates him from a community within which he is already isolated due to the circumstances of his birth. Moreover, working a job that is fast becoming obsolete limits Thomas’s prospects for the future, exacerbating an already difficult financial situation. After years of work, Thomas has no money to show for his labor, as he does not make enough to provide for himself and his mother, who helps them manage their perpetual debt. 

Thomas also pays a physical and emotional price for his profession. He has a hunched back, creaky joints, and other problems: “[H]is knees crack when he walks—it always takes him half an hour to get his body moving properly” (4), and he has “ingrown nails” and stiff, painful shoulders. That Pop used to have similar complaints underscores that it is not only the trade that Thomas has inherited but also its drawbacks. What’s more, Thomas’s curious, creative temperament renders him more susceptible to another of those drawbacks. Out on the beach, Thomas feels bored with the monotony of his daily routine but cannot let his mind wander because of the beach’s dangers. He considers the job “infuriating graft” as he is always “drudging with the seagulls in his ears and shitting on him from above, repeating the same motions as the countless days before” (10). Where Pop did not mind the repetitive nature of the work, Thomas finds it unbearable.

This monotony continues until Mr. Acheson comes along and prompts Thomas to consider other possibilities for his life and to reflect on his attachment to his job. These reflections make Thomas seriously question how long he should continue in this line of work: “He needs to reconcile the things he wants with what he’s able to achieve, and work out if this life that he’s inherited from Pop is worth bestowing when he’s finished” (118). The implication that Thomas does not want to pass this work on reinforces the novel’s suggestion that Thomas is constrained by the kind of labor he inherited from his grandfather.