A Sea of Change by Ott Mark P.;

Author:Ott, Mark P.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Kent State University Press

Johnson’s incompetence, his ignorance of the remarkable fish, and his remorseless loss of the fishing rod all signal him as a naive urban outsider in a frontier world. The clipped two-word reply of Morgan to Johnson’s question underscores the disgust he feels at Johnson’s behavior, as well as his anger at a universe that is so unfair as to let Johnson hook a spectacular thousand-pound marlin. Notable, too, is the passive observation of Morgan in this scene, and the one before it. Morgan offers advice; Johnson ignores it, disrespecting his expertise. As men from separate worlds—Morgan, a man of the outdoors and the Gulf Stream, and Johnson, a man of the city—they are separated by a boundary that prevents them from effectively communicating. Morgan derives a certain satisfaction in watching Johnson’s humiliation.

As chapter 3 begins, Morgan is leaving Havana to pick up Chinese refugees to smuggle into Key West. The description of the departure is noteworthy as an example of the concrete, matter-of-fact vision appropriate to a naturalistic novel. Morgan narrates:

I went out the harbor and past the Morro and put her on the course for Key West due north.… I dropped the Morro out of sight after a while and then the National Hotel and finally I could just see the dome of the Capitol. There wasn’t much current compared to the last day we had fished and there was only a light breeze. I saw a couple of smacks headed toward Havana and they were coming from the westward, so I knew the current was light. I cut the switch and killed the motor. There wasn’t any sense in wasting gas. I let her drift. When it got dark I could always pick up the light of the Morro or, if she drifted too far, the lights of Cojimar, and steer in and run along to Barcuranao. I figured the way the current looked she would drift the twelve miles up to Barcuranao by dark and I’d see the lights of Baracoa.… All there was to see was the two smacks off to the westward headed in, and way back the dome of the Capitol standing up white out of the edge of the sea.… I sat up there awhile on top of the house and watched but the only fish I saw were those little brown ones that use around [sic] the gulfweed. Brother, don’t let anybody tell you there isn’t plenty of water between Havana and Key West. I was just on the edge of it. (42–43)

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