81 pages • 2 hours read
Ship Breaker
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Themes
Families of Blood Versus Families of Choice
Content Warning: “Families of Blood Versus Families of Choice” contains references to abuse and addiction, while “Loyalty Threatening and Aiding Survival” references enslavement.
In Ship Breaker, Nailer wrestles with his feelings towards his father, Richard Lopez. He recognizes that his crew family—Sadna, Pima, and Nita—is far more supportive than his only remaining blood relative, yet he still believes that loyalty to his father takes precedence over even his own survival. While his fellow crewmembers repeatedly put themselves at risk to come to his aid, Richard neglects him, beats him, and at the end seeks to murder him for his own gain. Nailer must ultimately choose between blood ties or those who are far more worthy of his loyalty. Through the juxtaposition of family and crew, Bacigalupi shapes the narrative around the question of whether family is solely a relationship that we are born into or one that we can build.
From the start, Sadna is a mother figure for Nailer. Her home is the “safest place he [knows]” (38), and his fear and tension melt away “in the face of Sadna’s strength” (38). When Nailer nearly dies from impaling himself on a rusty shard of metal, it is Sadna who stitches him up; his father is on a drug and alcohol binge. Sadna makes sacrifices for Nailer: She drops her own quota to nurse him when he is injured, she gathers a crew to rescue him and Pima when Richard takes them prisoner, she fights Blue Eyes when the Life Cult member is about to take Nailer’s eyes, and she offers to pay Richard off so he won’t kill Nailer for his betrayal. Since Nailer’s mother died when he was small, Sadna is the only mother he knows, and she repeatedly opposes Nailer’s father in the matter of Nailer’s well-being. Pima also stands up for Nailer; she vouches for him for light crew, helping him survive on the beach. Like a big sister, she leads him to the cave where he can shelter from the city killer, and she warns him against his father, knowing that someday, Richard will kill Nailer. Pima is the one person that Nailer can rely upon to always have his back. She “never wavered[...]she never broke[...]she always kept you safe” (52), unlike his father, who is the antithesis of safety.
Contrasted with these mother and sister figures, Richard is a demon in human form. Nailer must tiptoe around his father’s moods, never knowing if there will be “pain and screaming and a chase” (58). Nailer knows there was a time when it wasn’t dangerous to simply walk into his home, but those days are long gone, and his father is a “snake, waiting to strike” rather than a concerned parent with an injured child (55). After Nailer betrays Richard by killing a member of his crew, Richard is actively malevolent towards his son. His loyalty to the heavy crew supersedes his loyalty to his son, and he will come after Nailer “with everything he’s got” (177). While Richard is hunting Nailer, Nailer attempts to puzzle out the meaning of family. Knot tells him that some families are different, but Nailer comes to the conclusion that the blood bond doesn’t mean a thing: “It was people that mattered. If they covered your back, and you covered theirs, then maybe that was worth calling family” (274). By this definition, Richard could never claim the title of family to Nailer, as his loyalty to Nailer only goes as far as is profitable. The climactic fight scene against his father on the sinking Pole Star brings the nature of family to a head. Nailer chooses to save Nita from Richard, but he still has reservations about hurting his father; he begs Richard to just let Nita go and then to just let him go. Richard responds, “I’m going to spread your guts on the floor! (304). Richard’s bloodthirsty intentions force Nailer to choose between Nita and his blood family; though his father is actively trying to kill him at the time, it’s still a hard choice for Nailer to make.
Bacigalupi contrasts Richard’s murderous behaviors with Nita’s efforts to save Nailer’s life after the fight. Once in the cargo hold, Nailer cannot summon the strength to climb out of the ship. Nita humorously shouts, “Crew up, Nailer! [...] You think I’m going to pull your ass up here like a damn swank?” (314). The incongruity of swanky Nita cursing like a ship breaker gives Nailer the impetus to claw his way out, with Nita’s help. Then, when the stormy waves threaten to suck Nailer under the sea, Nita swims back and supports him; unlike Richard who, like the sea, only attempted to pull Nailer down, Nita lifts him up literally and metaphorically from the water and the ship. However, once Nailer is safe again on Bright Sands, he feels “a strange hollow space under his ribs that refuse[s] to go away” when he thinks about his father (317). He recognizes that his father was “downright evil” (317), but Richard was his only family. Nailer finally reconciles his guilt by accepting that his true family is his crew: Sadna, Pima and Nita. His realization that “he wasn’t able to save everybody, but he could at least save family” demonstrates that he is able to choose the family that truly supports him rather than unquestioningly accept the family he was born into (322).
Loyalty Threatening and Aiding Survival
In Ship Breaker’s postapocalyptic world, climate change has shattered most of the United States economically and environmentally. The Chinese are the world leaders, while in the US, most people are simply trying to survive from day to day. Medicine, food, and education are scarce commodities, and corporations have taken the place of government. In this world, survival is a primary concern; morality and loyalty in the abstract are too expensive to maintain. However, these virtues can also translate into survival skills, for without a clan to protect them, young scavengers are at the mercy of human predators on the beach. In a setting of dramatic ecological and social devastation, Bacigalupi explores the theme of whether loyalty is essential to survival.
Loyalty is constantly called into question throughout the book. In Bright Sands, loyalty to one’s crew is paramount to survival. When Sloth betrays her blood oath to Nailer, she is kicked off the light crew and her tattoos are slashed to show her disloyalty. As harsh as the punishment is, the light crew thinks it fair; Sloth’s betrayal of Nailer is a betrayal of all of them. The job they do and their life on the beach are too dangerous to have someone they can’t trust watching their back. However, loyalty to one’s crew can also be a liability, especially when it entails self-sacrifice. The Dauntless crew is fanatically loyal to Nita; Nailer is astonished at how quickly it mobilizes “at the invocation of Lucky Girl’s name” (241). Bacigalupi uses the term “invocation” to emphasize the almost mystic qualities Nita holds for the sailors; it more commonly describes summoning a deity. Their loyalty is “[t]otal loyalty. More intense even than crew loyalty in the shipyards” (241). Tool warns Nailer against joining the crew to hunt for Nita because “[...] they are fanatics. They will die for their Miss Nita. If you go with them, be sure you are willing to do the same” (247). Tool places his personal survival above the rescue of a corporate princess from a fight that he has no stake in. However, if self-sacrifice can be counterintuitive to the survival of the individual, in the long run, it makes sense for the species when it comes to preserving genes. When the oil companies of the Accelerated Age put corporate loyalty above the survival of the masses, they brought about the dystopian world that Nailer now lives in.
Tool’s lack of loyalty to his patron puzzles Captain Candless and disturbs Knot. Because the half-men are so dangerous, it is essential that they have built-in safeguards against turning against the humans who enslave them. Tool is an anomaly; he chooses whom he is loyal to and implies that he killed his patron. In Knot’s mind, even suggesting he choose his own master is threatening, and he “look[s] like a mastiff, backed into a corner, ready to bite” when Nailer suggests it (272). Knot’s repeated insistence that he does not wish to choose his master shows how uncomfortable the question makes him, and it’s debatable whether this is because of his genetic conditioning or because of his relationship with Captain Candless. It’s an important point because Richard’s crew’s loyalty is also forced; Richard is arguably the most dangerous man on the beach after Tool. Furthermore, Richard doesn’t repay that loyalty in kind, forfeiting it when he sees that he might make even more money without his crew. Bacigalupi suggests that loyalty must be freely given to be enduring; otherwise it’s only another form of slavery, and a slave’s survival is uncertain.
Nailer chooses loyalty over his own survival more often than not; he is intensely loyal to his chosen family and crew. However, Nailer also mulls over the implications of loyalty. Nita’s loyalty to her father sends her loyal crew to their deaths in the storm, while Nailer betrays his own father. Family doesn’t seem to be a factor in loyalty (or at least his family isn’t). What is a factor is the worth of the person he is risking himself for: Nailer fights Blue Eyes to protect Sadna, even though his selfless act is almost certain to end in his death. He fights his father to save Nita, even though his father has taken on an almost mythical status as a predator and villain, and in a twist on the survival theme, his self-sacrifices help him realize his dreams. Though loyalty has its limits in a world where survival cannot be taken for granted, the loyalty Nailer displays is what cements his Ultimate success.
Destiny Versus Free Will
The importance of exercising one’s free will rather than accepting one’s destiny is a recurring theme throughout Ship Breaker. In Bright Sands, the residents have attached religious overtones to the idea that “the Fates” control destiny. In actuality, belief in fate is a coping device for the very poor, who have little chance of ever breaking out of the cycle of poverty: If everything they do and work for only reinforces their destined place on the beach, then it must be their fate to be desperately poor. However, both Pima and Nailer have come to the realization that there is more to life than just luck and destiny. When Nailer tells Sadna, “I don’t believe in Fates” (38), he is breaking with the beach tradition to bow down to one’s destiny. He has fought for a place on light crew and fought for his life in the oil room. Furthermore, if he simply accepted the ideology that the Fates have mapped out his future completely, then he would have to conclude that the Fates wanted him to be saddled with a homicidal father. Rather than believe in a hostile force out to get him, he breaks with orthodoxy and begins to take actions that will grant him the life that he believes he deserves.
Bacigalupi builds the resulting narrative around the theme that free will takes precedence over destiny. Nailer is saddled with some pretty regrettable genetics: his father is violent, ruthlessly ambitious, heartless, and murderous. To counter the idea of blood destiny, Bacigalupi characterizes Tool as a bioengineered warrior slave who has broken free of the genetic programming that would enslave him to a single patron. Tool repeatedly compares Nailer to his father; when Nailer kills Blue Eyes, Tool remarks, “Be glad you come from such a successful line of killers” (175). However, Tool doesn’t believe that genetics determine one’s path in life. When Nita questions Tool’s genetic background, he replies, “If genes are destiny, then Nailer should have sold you to your enemies and spent the bounty on red rippers and Black Ling whiskey” (212). Nailer’s lightning quickness may be genetic, but he can choose to use it for good or evil; Tool’s loyalty may be programmed, but he is smarter than his creators, and only he determines whom he gives that loyalty to. Nailer’s aversion to becoming like his father is as strong as Tool’s aversion to being a slave; both characters use the negativity of their past as motivation to determine their futures.
However, the characters are not immune to the random cruelty in their lives or to the reality of living in a postapocalyptic dystopia. Nailer’s happy ending only partially counterbalances the darkness in Ship Breaker. Regardless, within the limitations of their circumstances, the central characters are not passive about their destiny. Nailer chooses his own family and his own morality; he rises above the circumstances of his birth and makes new allegiances with Captain Candless and his crew. He alone determines which of his inherited traits to use in his life and avoids following in his father’s footsteps. Nita renounces her swanky perspective towards those in poverty and commits to improving the circumstances of the residents of Bright Sands. Tool is free to withdraw from Nailer and Nita’s fight and pursue his life elsewhere. All three characters throw off the shackles of their perceived destinies and create lives they can live with.
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