Wreck

Rocky is the novel’s protagonist and narrator, a round and dynamic character whose internal world is defined by an anxiety that is linked to her deep love for her family and that fuels the theme The Precariousness of Happiness in the Face of Random Tragedy. Her perspective shapes the reader’s experience, filtering all events through her hyper-aware, often catastrophic, lens. Rocky’s central characteristic is her hypochondria, which is a manifestation of her fear of loss. This is established in the novel’s opening pages when a small rash becomes a potential “pearlescent melanoma” (3). Her anxiety is a direct consequence of deep affection in a world where tragedy can strike randomly. She understands that her love for her children makes them, and her, vulnerable, reflecting that “the enormity of my love for these tender, fleshly beings was twinned with a potential for loss so unimaginably deep and powerful that it was like a black hole lurking just outside our window” (18). By comparing her terror to a lurking black hole, Rocky reveals how debilitating her fear of loss is, and it is clear that her greatest joys are always accompanied by the dread of their absence.