30 pages • 1 hour read
The Perfect Storm
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The Sea
If there’s a premiere symbol in the book, it’s the sea. The sea, here, represents the ultimate power of nature. It’s the sea that creates the storm, and it’s the sea the men have to face when they go out. Even on calm days, as the sinking of the Terri Lei shows, at the end of the book, there is danger at sea, and even the biggest ships, like the 584-foot Gold Bond Conveyor, have to fear the power of the ocean.
The sea, then, is a vast force of nature that man cannot control. It is the unknown, the unexplored. And it is, ultimately, for many men and many ships who sail upon her, a grave.
The Andrea Gail
What happened to the Andrea Gail makes up the central mystery of the book and serves as a symbol for all ships lost at sea. Junger describes the history of fishing, relates stories of numerous ships lost at sea, and gathers data from all the other ships in the swordfishing fleet, in an effort to understand what happened to the Gail. In doing so, he studies how wind affects waves. He studies storms and their effect on the environment, on ships, and on people.
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By Sebastian Junger
