Ship Breaker

Nailer lives in a world overwhelmingly impacted by rising seas. What do these waters symbolically represent in this novel?

• What general associations does Western culture have with water and oceans?
• What patterns of diction, details, and figurative language are associated with the ocean in this novel?
• How does the ocean positively and negatively impact characters?
• What contribution does the ocean make to the novel’s thematic concerns with Families of Blood Versus Families of Choice, Loyalty Threatening and Aiding Survival, and Destiny Versus Free Will?

Teaching Suggestion: Students will likely struggle the most with the second and fourth bulleted sub-questions. The question about diction, details, and figurative language requires that they review a substantial amount of text and think critically about patterns that tie together these textual elements; because this can be time-consuming, you might divide the class into working groups, each assigned to gather data on a different portion of the text or a different textual element. Then these groups can report back to a whole class discussion. The fourth bulleted sub-question presents a different challenge: it is highly abstract. You might encourage students to think about patterns in plot events that take place on or very near the water.