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... Banks, 218). Finally Bob has a chance to make a living doing what he knows, and what he loves. Since childhood, fishing has satisfied his need to be alone and in the natural world at the same time, his deep, extremely conscious need for the presence of his own thoughts coming to him in his own voice, which rarely happens in the presence of other people, his need for order and, perhaps his most tangled need, his need for competence, (Banks, 62). Bob is successful fishing, but unsuccessful as a businessman. There are not as many customers as he had expected, not as many as he needed to have any hope of buying the Belinda Blue.
Like the image he had of Eddy, the reality of being a commercial fisherman is far from the way that Bob visualized it. After selling virtually everything that the family owns so that he can buy 25 % of the Belinda Blue, Bob can not afford to care for his family. Far from a path that will lead to something better, (Banks, 15) the family struggles as they never had before. If Bob is unwilling to accept the fact that Ave Boone is smuggling to pay the bills, he goes into complete denial when Elaine tells him that she is taking a job at night to help pay for Ruthies medical expenses. A mans man does not need to rely on his wife to help support the family. His role is that of the sole provider, while his wife tends to the house and the children.
When Elaine points out that she can make a significantly larger sum of money than Bob could by taking a second job, it forces Bob to see that he is a failure, if only in his own eyes. To say that Bobs failure lies strictly in the fact that he did not achieve his goal is to miss the point of his failure entirely; Odysseus underwent many trials, losing all of his men in the process, before he found his way home. Part of the driving force behind Bobs need for something better is that he doesnt want to end up like his father, dead long before they actually put him in the ground, sitting up late at night, drunk, listening to Destinys Darling over and over and over again. Bob never stopped to think about what was good in his father, though. He never saw that his father was a strong man who worked hard for his family, and if it was the same crappy job that his father had done, he didnt complain, he didnt trade his families security for his own happiness, and his wife never had to take a job to help out with the expenses.
Bobs father was everything that a man was expected to be, strong, dependable, the sole provider, and if he failed to support his family emotionally, they never lacked any material thing that the families around them had. Bobs father sacrificed his personal goals for those of his family, and if Bobs fondest memories are of his youth, the sacrifices of his father are the reason why. Bobs real failure, the failure which leads to every point in the story, is that he takes for granted the things in his life that he does have, and when it really matters, he does not have the inner strength to hold on to it; In fact, what he hates about his life is precisely what he usually points to with pride: he has a steady job, he owns his own house, he has a happy, healthy family, and so on, (Banks, 13). It is not until all of these things are gone, lost in the purge of his former life, that Bob puts any value in them. In respect to his not being like his father, Bob has attained this goal, in a sense: he can not provide for his family and his children and wife suffer emotionally. Throughout the novel, references are made to the fact that Bob wants to be a good man, although he realizes that he is not.
I worry so much about whether Im any good or not, or what I ought to do or shouldn't ought to do, or whether Im smart enough or work hard enough, all those things, that theres never much room in my head for anyone elses problems, (Banks, 90). Never is this more evident than when the Coast Guard hails Bob while he is trying to smuggle illegal Haitian immigrants into the United States. Tyrone, Bobs mate, begins to fire a gun, forcing the Haitians to jump into a stormy sea so that he and Bob can escape, avoiding prison sentences. Although he tries to resist Tyrone, Bob allows himself to believe that the Haitians will be able to survive the swim in to shore in heavy seas, until it is too late: the Haitians are drowning and Bob has relinquished control of the boat to Tyrone. He did not relinquished control in any official way, any way that can be easily described, yet when Bob has the opportunity to turn back and try to save the Haitians, he is not strong enough to do so; when Tyrone hands him the gun, Bob throws it overboard and docilely goes down to remove any evidence of the Haitians being on board.
No longer trying to be a mans man, Bob is a true villain. Through his weakness as a man, Bob allowed the deaths of fifteen human beings because someone else, someone that he doesnt even like, much less respect, told him that it was the right thing to do under the circumstances. Once again, Bob allows His fears and anxieties, his aversions, to obscure the world to him (Banks, 64). Whether or not he is a good man is no longer in question; Bob can never be a good man from this point on. Bob has faced his moment of truth, the moment that will define him as a man, and he has failed.
Rather than do what he feels is right, Bob is weak and takes the path of least resistance. Odysseus faced many such moments, times when he could have taken the easy path rather than face possible death; but each time he accepted the challenge because it was the right thing to do, what defined him as a man of character, and what would eventually lead him home. And if some God batters me far out on the wine-blue water, I will endure it, keeping a stubborn spirit inside me, for I already have suffered much and done much hard work on the waves and in the fighting. So let this adventure follow, (Homer, 94).
No matter what Bob does from this point on, should he live another hundred years, he will never atone for the wrong that he is responsible for, and Bobs fate is sealed because he knows it. Second only, in selfishness, to the unloading of the Haitians, is Bobs self sacrifice at the hands of the Haitian youths, who try to take the blood money. Once again, and for the final time, Bob is thinking only of himself. When then the youths try to take the money, Bob put up a fight, screaming, No! This money is mine 1 (Banks, 363).
Bob thinks that he will be able to forgive himself and find some amount of redemption if he can get the blood money that was taken from the Haitians to Vanise. The money is his salvation, his only chance for life. Bob does not want to help Vanise for her sake, but rather for his own, and so when he sacrifices his life it becomes his most selfish act in the novel. He is not sacrificing his life, like his father did, for the good of his family or those he hurt, but as one final desperate act to allow him a chance at happiness.
This is evidenced by the fate of the family members he left behind, the people he could have helped if he were willing to endure a life of quiet sacrifice. Bob is a man who is caught up in the materialism of the capitalist era. He is too selfish to see that he already has the freedom he desires, that he already has things to be thankful for; and he is too weak of a man to hold on to any of it. Bob wants something better, he believes that the only way to be a successful, happy man is to have the all of the accessories that can be found on Hart to Hart.
What Bob does not understand is that the material items have nothing to do with being the good man that he wants to be. What the Greeks praised in Odysseus was not his vast wealth, but his abilities as a man. So when sees only weakness in his father, while admiring Ave Boone and Eddy, he is doomed never to become a great man. In the end, he is not even a good man. Bibliography: Works Cited Banks, Russell. Continental Drift.
New York: Harper Perennial, 1994. Homer. The Odyssey. Richmond Lattimore, Trans. , Harper Perennial, 1999.
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