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The Sea Story In Sea Fever, By A. S. Byatt

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Sea Story by A.S. Byatt: An Analysis

“He was born beside the sea - almost literally, for his mother’s birth pangs began when she was walking along the shoreline under a pale sun gathering butterfly shell.” (Byatt) The author begins her story close to the sea, where the main character, Harold was born and raised. The sea plays an important role throughout the story as it is an important element used to drive the story forward. “Sea Story” is a short story written by A.S. Byatt, a novelist and poet, in 2013. It is, in essence, a story of a man’s lost love with a strong focus on nature, especially of the sea.
The story begins with young Harold, born in Filey, a fishing town. The author describes in vivid detail, the beauty of the beach, “a perfect sweep of pale golden beach, crumbling grassy cliffs, and the unique Filey Brigg…” Harold’s father was an oceanographer and is absent throughout the story while his mother is an English teacher who would recite poems to him. One of the poems she recited to him, which is subsequently quoted at some length in the short story, is “Sea Fever” by John Masefield. The literary quotation here has to vital use to the story, one is to emphasis the importance of water (and the sea) in the story and the other, perhaps as a hint as to where his father has gone. “I must go down to the seas again,” seems to describe what the father does as an …show more content…

The two last sentences of the story ends with a strong note on how humans are killing themselves with their inane and uncaring way of living. The author believes that lack of love and reverence towards nature will inevitably lead to the demise of

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