Surfacing

Surfacing Characters

The main characters in Surfacing are the unnamed narrator, her boyfriend, Joe, and their friends, David and Anna.

The Unnamed Narrator

The narrator remains unnamed throughout the novel, emphasizing how she functions as a symbol of the feminine struggle to develop a personal identity within the patriarchy. She spends much of the novel searching for her missing father, oscillating between hope that he is alive, grief that he is dead, and fear that he has gone mad. The narrator also struggles to navigate her unloving relationship with her boyfriend and her fear that she is emotionless. She exemplifies an unreliable narrator, as her understanding of reality constantly twists, transforms, and contradicts itself. At the novel's end, the narrator sinks into madness, throwing off her complicated human identity and embracing that of an animal.

Fig. 4: The narrator's sense of identity and reality are constant sources of confusion.

Joe

The narrator's boyfriend, Joe is depicted as an enigmatic, ambiguous figure. The narrator's understanding of Joe shifts throughout the novel, and she never fully understands him or his motives. Joe becomes angry after the narrator rejects his proposal, but at the end of the novel, he returns to the island to search for her despite her rejection. He seems to genuinely want to be with the narrator, but her biased perception of him makes it difficult to get an accurate depiction of his true nature.

David

Anna's husband and the narrator's friend, David is a controlling, abusive, manipulative man. He is the picture of male dominance and does everything he can to make his wife submissive to his demands. He cheats on her, insults her, and objectifies her. While the narrator initially thought David and Anna were in a happy marriage, she soon realizes their marriage is actually built on control.

Anna

David's wife and the narrator's friend, Anna seems to normalize abuse in a marriage. At first, the narrator idealizes Anna's role as a wife, but the narrator soon realizes their marriage is not one to envy. Anna's resignation to David's emotional and sometimes physical abuse makes the narrator apprehensive of the idea of marriage.

Paul

The narrator's family friend, Paul sends a letter to the narrator, letting her know her father has gone missing. He is not involved in much of the plot, but he seems to care about the narrator deeply, even going back to find her when she refuses to leave the island with her friends.

Surfacing Analysis

Surfacing is an allegorical novel in which the female narrator feels alienated from society and struggles with her own identity in her male-dominated world. The narrator isn't even given a name, enabling her to symbolize the loss of female identity at the hands of the patriarchy. Instead of being recognized as an individual, the narrator is primarily defined by her relationship with her boyfriend and missing father.

It takes submerging herself in water for the narrator to unbury her repressed memories and realize the truth of her history. The dunking herself in the water as she vainly searches for her father's lost research is symbolic of baptism and rebirth. The narrator surfaces cleansed of the identity the patriarchy has forced on her and can discover herself anew. The novel's title refers to the narrator's symbolic surfacing out of the lie-based reality she has been taught by the patriarchy and into a reality she can define for herself.

Fig. 5: The narrator resurfacing from the water functions as a metaphorical baptism and rebirth.

It isn't just individual men that alienate and oppress women like the narrator. It's society itself. In this patriarchal society, exploitation becomes a natural fact of life. Take David's camera: he spends the entire trip capturing film that demeans and objectifies women and nature alike. He takes videos of a dead heron hanging from a tree and intends to use them to further his own agenda instead of honoring the bird's life. Likewise, he pressures Anna to strip for the sake of the film, verbally abusing her until she does. Anna immediately regrets giving in to her husband's demands, as he plans to objectify and exploit her body in his film.

In both cases, the camera symbolizes how the value of women and nature is commodified by the patriarchy, alienating both from the society in which they exist. The narrator eventually destroys the film as an act of rebellion against the oppression, exploitation, and alienation of women and their identities.

Surfacing Themes

The main themes in Surfacing are identity and otherness and the domination and reclamation of identity.

The Alienation and Domination of Women

The narrator's greatest conflict comes from feeling alienated from her patriarchal society, which emphasizes the role of men over that of women. She even feels isolated from her boyfriend, who she can't decide if she loves or trusts, and her friends, who she realizes she knows nothing about. The narrator almost feels like she's an outsider looking into a world she doesn't understand or want to be a part of. The more time she spends with her friends, the more she realizes marriage—and life inside the patriarchy in general—terrifies her.

She watches as Anna is oppressed by her abusive husband, who traps her in a marriage characterized by emotional abuse, infidelity, and violent sex. Anna accepts his actions as the norm, never rebelling against or leaving him when he mistreats her. On the outside, their marriage looks happy and healthy, but the narrator soon realizes what she thought was romance is merely control and manipulation.

Fig. 6: Anna and David's happy facade conceals the oppressive nature of their relationship.

Reclamation of Identity

On a personal level, the narrator's society has alienated her from herself as well as others. The narrator doesn't seem to have any control over her memories or sense of reality. Her stories don't quite blend when she talks about her past with her husband and child. It's almost as though she has been told so many different things, she doesn't know how to separate fact from fiction anymore. The narrator's false memories of her husband and child have been used to distance herself from the guilt of the abortion and affair. But the narrator's complete acceptance of the lies as truth shows how little control she has over her own identity.

After her symbolic surfacing from the patriarchy's false reality, the narrator has shaken free of the alienation forced upon her and can reclaim her own identity. She starts by distancing herself from Anna, David, and Joe, all figures who uphold the patriarchy's status quo.

The narrator then tries to distance herself from society completely by giving in to her animal instincts. She sheds her complicated human identity and rebuilds one based on an intimate relationship with nature. In this natural state, which is seen by human society to be a form of madness, the narrator can see her life clearly. She recognizes herself as a normal woman, but one who has the power to shape her own life and become an active part of the world around her. After reclaiming her identity, the narrator considers joining Joe on the boat and reentering society as a changed woman.

Surfacing Quotes

Below are some of the most notable quotes from Surfacing, reflecting the novel's major themes.

In this section of the novel, the narrator is thinking about the difference between her childhood on the island and in the city. She is worried she won't be able to discern the truth of her past, as her memory might be influenced by what other people have told her. This anxiety over memory being subjective and untrustworthy foreshadows the narrator's later revelation that she has been suppressing her past trauma. She struggles to make sense of her identity and reality amidst her ever-changing perception of the past.

When the narrator finally reclaims her identity after spiraling into "madness," she resolves to take control of her life. For years, the narrator had lived under the false belief that she was powerless and unable to change her own life. After reconnecting with the natural world and removing herself from the complexities of the patriarchy, the narrator finally recognizes the power inside of her all along.