Sea Story

Sea Story

Mother Nature is a fierce woman. She gives and she takes, divides and devours. As much as she separates land from sea, she can separate man from woman. She shows the inconsistencies and differences between the two when it comes to love, in the short story Sea Story by A. S. Byatt from 2012, as she slowly dissolve a bottle set to sea - which in the grand scheme has a much greater meaning.        

The story is about a man named Harold, who grows up and lives in Filey, on the east Yorkshire coast. Raised by an oceanographer and a high school English teacher who writes “fierce little poems about waves and weather”, his father and mother respectively, he grows up with an affections for ocean, but decides to follow his mother’s example and study English literature. Whilst he is studying at Oxford University, he falls in love with the soon-to-become marine biologist, Laura, who emerges from the water while Harold is fishing in his boat. Unable to declare his love for Laura before she leaves for her dream job in the Caribbean the same evening they meet, he decides to write letters for an address in Scotland she provided him. When no answers or letters are received on Harold’s end, he decides to send a message in a bottle, and send it by ocean, in hopes it reaches Laura in the Caribbean. The message and the bottle dissolves on its journey through the ocean and various fish stomachs, as Harold and Laura’s relationship never get a chance to flourish. The story ends with how they each turned out to live their lives, as Harold got married, had 3 kids and lived in Filey, while Laura died long ago in a boat accident.

All throughout the story, the ocean plays a major role. From Harold’s childhood and poems his mother cites, to the marine goddess who rises from the sea like a seal, to the ocean and animals within who destroys his last bit of hope and sign of love for Laura. Already from the start of the story, it is clear to the reader, that the main character is affiliated with water and the ocean: “He was born besides the sea - almost literally, […]” (Line 1). It continues throughout the story, and constantly revolves around his life and how that itself revolves around the sea. Although he shows affections for the ocean and cannot simply stay away, he keeps a certain distance, whether it be by fear or respect. He chose the life on land and the path of English literature, deeply incompatible with a marine biologist who lives in the ocean. Harold does not go all in that aspect, as he lives on the shore close to the ocean, but never fully in it. You can see that he has a certain need to be by the sea. His first days at Oxford and away from the sea were “peculiarly painful” (Line 29). He returned to Filey to live with his family, as it is where he feels comfortable and home. He and Laura are polar opposites, and were doomed from the first meeting to never end up together.
Nature is also what ends up killing Laura, and ironically when Harold and Laura first met, he removed his own netting to make sure Laura did not drown, and she then dies entangled in her own netting.