Sailmaker essays

Sailmaker essays Sailmaker by Alan Spence was written with a strong theme. Spence conveys effectively the theme of hope turning to disillusionment. He does this with sensitive characterisation, an effective structure and powerful symbolism. The story is set in Glasgow around the 1960s when the ship building industry was declining. It is about a boy who lives wit his parents in a tenement flat. His dad is a tic man but used to be a sailmaker. The boy finds a small old yacht in the bed recess in their small home. He asks his dad to fix the yacht up because it has no sails but his father keeps on delaying this. The boys uncle paints it for him without delaying but the father never put sails on it. So eventually the boy forgets about it and the yacht goes back to where it came from, the glory hole. In the second part of the story, time has moved on. It is a few years later and the family is not doing well because the mother has died and the father is out of a job, spending most of his time drinking or at the betting shop. Soon the boy and his father become desperate and start burning their belongings in the fire. They find the fathers old tools and the boat, and burn them also. The fathers tools and the yacht are the main symbols in the story. Alan Spence uses them as symbols of loosing hope. The tools were tools that the father used when he was a sailmaker. They are a symbol of part of his life and his pride in his craft, therefore they are important to him. When he puts them into the fire this shows his desperation because he needs to sacrifice these important possessions. Earlier on in the story there is another symbol of hope fading. The torch that the father used when he became a tic man is a pathetic substitute for his sailmaking tools. It emphasises the contrast between the two jobs. The small boat is an ongoing symbol all the way through the story. From w...