Wild Dark Shore

“But she isn’t frightened of the dead. It is only the living who have the power to harm.”

In this quote, Fen expresses a sentiment whose meaning is only revealed at the end of the novel. This ambiguity builds suspense, inviting the reader to wonder what it is about the living that creates fear in Fen. Later, it is revealed that she is traumatized by Hank’s assault on her. This line also reflects Fen’s fear of what humans more generally have caused—that is, anthropogenic climate change.

“This coastline looks nothing like it did when we arrived here eight years ago. We are all acutely aware of this fact, but we don’t much talk about what rapidly rising sea levels mean: they mean losing the rocks and the beaches, losing the research base and all its buildings, losing the boathouse and its Zodiacs, losing a way to safely board a ship out of here. What rising sea levels mean is the loss of our home.”

Dominic here reflects on the human costs of climate change and the way humans respond to these. The Salt family chooses not to talk directly about the existential threat of the rising water levels and the impact it will have on their lives, revealing one of the factors that complicates Ethical Action in the Face of Climate Change. The quote also reflects how the family is about to experience what Rowan already has: the loss of their home due to climate change-related natural disasters.

“What are you meant to do with kids? Protect them or be honest? I shrug, tell him what I think is true. ‘One day soon enough, everything is either going to burn, drown, or starve, including us.’”

In this exchange with Orly, Rowan represents one approach to ethical action in the face of climate change. Unlike Dominic, she chooses not to hide the existential threat that climate change poses to humanity. However, she also expresses a nihilism about the future that she later renounces when she chooses to intervene to save what she can.

“On the day they first kiss, Raff’s heart does not speed up; instead, it seems to slow right down, it beats so hard and so slow that he thinks of the whale heart. Of the humpback, and the enormity of that heart, of its chambers a person can walk through.”

While Fen closely identifies with the seals, Raff closely identifies with the whales. In this quote, he illustrates this connection by noting that his heart rate is slowing to the slow beat of a humpback whale’s heart. This comparison also highlights how one’s heart figuratively expands when one is in love, as Raff is with Alex.

“Loving a place is the same as having a child. They are both too much an act of hope, of defiance. And those are a fool’s weapons.”

In this quote, Rowan reflects on the hopelessness she feels in the aftermath of her home’s destruction and ties it to her reluctance to have children as a result of her brother’s death. She dismissively characterizes hope and defiance as “fool’s weapons.” Later, she reforms this view, coming to love both Shearwater Island and the children who live there.

“It comes over me like the mountain we stand beneath. Now that I am here among them, contemplating the scale of these seeds—there are so many of them—I can feel the weight Hank must have been under, I can feel the burden Dom spoke of. How to let go of plants and trees and flowers and shrubs, how to let go of the most exquisite, the most unusual, how to let biodiversity die in favor of what humans can eat. Not only do I feel this weight, I see the future laid out before me. A vast stretch of crops and nothing else, nothing wild or natural, and even these neatly planted rows threatened on all sides by flame and flood. All of earth, a wasteland.”

This quote addresses another aspect of ethical action in the face of climate change. Humanity is focused on saving only itself. However, Rowan characterizes this goal as short-sighted and sterile. The emphasis on saving food crops rather than supporting biodiversity will result in a “wasteland.” Tacitly, this supports the argument that the more ethical approach would be to prioritize the lives of all living creatures rather than just humans.

“‘I had this insane drive to build a house that would keep my sisters safe. But it was stupid, and I’m sick of trying to make things that will survive this world because nothing can, anymore.’

At first I think he’s done with the conversation, that he will let that be the end. But then he says, ‘Most of what I do with my days is repair things that are gonna break again soon. I just fix them and then when they break I fix them again. It’s like pushing shit up a hill.’

‘So why do you do it?’

‘Because someone has to, or everything just stays broken.’”

This exchange between Dominic and Rowan lays out the initial differences in their approaches to ethical action in the face of climate change. Rowan has succumbed to nihilism, seeing the effort to “make things that will survive this world” as futile. Dominic, a handyman, gently corrects her by suggesting that it is important to attempt to repair the world, even if such efforts are impermanent and fleeting.

“It is Dominic who sorts it out, as he sorts out everything. For a moment Raff reflects on the feeling of safety this has always provided him with, the knowledge that his father can solve any problem, is capable of anything. Except that he can’t bring back the dead, can he. There is that. And from this loss, Raff will never feel safe again.”

Many coming-of-age stories involve the protagonist’s realization that their parents cannot fix everything—that they are human and therefore limited. For Raff, this realization comes on his 18th birthday. The entry into adulthood is for him marked by knowledge of the dangers of the world.

“He takes such clear and simple joy from this feat of engineering, the clever details of invention, and I remember having this precise feeling years ago when I first wanted to understand how things work, and I feel it again now, but it is not this lens I find myself wanting to pick apart, to get to the insides of, to know. It is Dominic Salt.”

This quote marks an important turning point in Rowan and Dominic’s relationship: when she first recognizes her growing feelings of affection for him. In this moment, the lighthouse lens serves a symbolic function. Just as the light guided sailors safely away from danger, Dominic himself guides Rowan to a healthier understanding of herself and the world around her.

“I don’t tell them I think trauma lives on in animals the same way it is shared through generations in people. I don’t say I think everything on this island knows what these fucking barrels were for.”

In this quote, Rowan references epigenetics, or the idea that the experiences (often traumatic) that an organism has during its life cause genetic changes that can be passed down through generations. She also ascribes intelligence and emotions to the animals on Shearwater Island, suggesting that they have their own agency and understanding. They are not simply objects in the background to be stewarded or used by humans for their own ends.

“Is this how you feel after being swept in on a current? Will you change shape and put down roots? Or carry on in search of somewhere better?”

Orly frequently connects Rowan’s experiences to the lifecycles of the seeds. This figurative language grounds the seeds as a symbol, suggesting that they relate broadly to hope for the future and survival. In this quote, he suggests that Rowan has, like a mangrove seed, floated to their island, and he wonders if she will find it a suitable environment to “grow” in. He hopes she does because he is desperate for a mother figure to care for him.

“I cannot, in this moment, fathom the men who came here on their boats to kill these creatures. I can’t comprehend what could allow you to do that, what could drive you to it. They do not seem like they could belong to the same species, but maybe it is the animal in me that feels the love, the human that can detach from it.”

Modern Western societies have often distinguished between animals and humans by arguing that animals lack complex emotion and act purely on impulse. In this quote, Rowan flips that dichotomy, suggesting that it is humans who lack emotion while the animal part of her is capable of empathy.

“I wrench my thoughts away from that dark place, knowing I must be in shock if I am going somewhere I left behind so long ago. I don’t want to think about it except I can feel him now. His little body weightless against me. Shearwater is a place of ghosts, after all, and it has found mine and delivered him back to me.”

When Rowan nearly drowns after the whale capsizes her Zodiac, it triggers a memory of her brother, who died by drowning. This moment is an example of the motif of ghosts, spirits, and memories that is tied to the theme of the Interconnectivity of Life and Death.

“Dominic and I fall asleep where we are, curled in our blankets. I listen to his breathing. As I drift off, I am locking doors, building firmer barricades. But he wakes me in the early morning with a soft question, the sound of which could almost be a dream. “Could there be an after for the five of us?”

Following the death of her brother, for which she still carries a feeling of intense guilt, Rowan has focused on keeping others out. She describes this process in metaphorical terms here as “locking doors, building firmer barricades.” However, Dominic’s hopefulness about their future, represented in the question he asks her at the end of this excerpt, leads her to slowly open those metaphorical doors.

“It is astounding, actually, that the rage survives this long, with this much exertion to wear it out. He is expecting it to be gone by the time he gets here but it isn’t, it is as vivid as ever. Because he can’t stop thinking how utterly wrong this is. This wasn’t supposed to be their life. He doesn’t know how to save them from it, how to hold them together.”

Following his coming-of-age with the death of Alex, Raff struggles with his newfound understanding of adults’ inability to control the circumstances of their lives. He is angry that he is not able to provide security for those he loves. His rage is an example in miniature of the helplessness that Rowan and Dominic also struggle with while trying to protect those they love from the cruelty of the world.

“I tell myself he’ll be alright. That he has to be. Because he’s a kid, and kids are resilient.

But as night falls and we all slide wearily into bed, I hear the patter of small feet and there is a boy climbing in with me, and he tells me the story of the dinosaur trees. And I can understand why he might not, in fact, be alright. Why maybe none of us will be, because we have, all of us humans, decided what to save, and that is ourselves.”

In this quote, Rowan reflects on ethical action in the face of climate change. A key aspect of this is how much to inform children about the dangers of climate change. She attempts to comfort herself with the knowledge that “kids are resilient.” She also reflects on how humanity generally privileges its own survival over the survival of other species, and her conclusion suggests that she recognizes this might be a poor decision to make.

“I close my eyes, drinking it all in, knowing it is a place in time that I will never forget. The world is dangerous and we will not survive it. But there is this. Impermanent as it may be.

I am certain I’m not the only one who feels the presences on the wind. All the hungry ghosts of Shearwater Island, come to dance with us on the hill.”

This scene reflects an important turning point in Rowan’s relationship to and understanding of the existential threat of climate change. Where she once gave in to despair, she recognizes here that it is important to value the “impermanent” and limited sparks of life that can be saved and to celebrate them. Further, she recognizes that life goes on after death, represented in the “ghosts” that join the living in their celebration.

“We are surrendering this vault to the sea, and we are going to save as many packets of seeds as we can by ferrying them up to our lighthouse freezer. And maybe there are too many, and maybe there isn’t enough time, but we will just…keep going. We will run, for every second of the time we have left.”

In this quote, Rowan expresses her newfound understanding of the importance of intervening to save as much life as possible, even if such efforts are incomplete and possibly futile. Her words tacitly encourage readers to do what they can to preserve the natural world.

“‘I’ll go anywhere with you,’ I tell him simply. 

‘And I you,’ he murmurs, and we are kissing and I feel it again, that sense of time folding over on itself, of a thousand lifetimes spent together. If it is our bodies that should one day be washed up onshore then I hope they will do so together.”

In this exchange, Rowan and Dominic affirm their love and affection for one another even as they face an apocalypse that may take their lives. The novel suggests that it is an act of life-affirming courage to choose love knowing that the object of that love may one day die, a possibility that Rowan acknowledges in this quote.

“Maybe we will drown or burn or starve one day, but until then we get to choose if we’ll add to that destruction or if we will care for each other.”

In this quote, taciturn Dominic expresses forthrightly his understanding of ethical action in the face of climate change. He refuses to give in to nihilism and instead states that he will act with love and care as long as he is able to. This is in direct contrast to the destructive despondency Hank expresses.

“The banksia will wait, and wait, and wait for this fire to come. Only with flames and smoke licking at everything around it will it open its valves and let its seeds be taken on this hot, burning wind. Only to black ground, only to ash, will the banksia give its seed. And only within this scorched wasteland can it survive and find a way to thrive. From beneath the carpet of ash—which the untrained eye would look at and see death—comes life, bursting free.”

In this quote, Orly reaffirms the interconnectivity of life and death in the natural world. Although fires are hugely destructive, there are life forms, like the banksia, that require that destruction as a catalyst for new growth—a point the passage underscores through its repetition of “only.” This cyclical interdependency encourages hope that life will go on in the face of climate change and its destruction.

“I saw the horror in her eyes, felt the retreat within her. I knew it was coming and yet I did not realize it would feel so bad, so ruinous, I did not realize there could be no preparation for this kind of pain. It is really fucking sad that it should take loss to know the precise quality of love.”

Throughout Wild Dark Shore, love is constantly weighed against the pain of loss. This is reflected, for instance, in Rowan’s hesitancy to love again for fear of losing the object of that love as she lost her brother. When Dominic realizes Rowan knows his terrible secret, that he has locked Hank away in the seed vault, he experiences this feeling in miniature.

“It is possible he will never play the violin again, but if there is any choice in the matter, he won’t rest until he does. He is a boy—a man now—who knows well what it means to lose the things he loves. There is such peril in loving things at all, and he feels sort of proud, in fact, that he just keeps on doing it.”

Like Rowan, Raff learns over the course of the novel that it takes courage to choose to love things if they might be lost. His newfound maturity leads him to understand that he must accept the things he cannot change. He can channel his emotions in a healthy way into the violin rather than into destructive behaviors. In this way, he is a foil for Hank, who instead chose the path of destruction.