Characters and Relationships (HSC SSCE English Standard): Revision Notes
Characters and Relationships
Introduction to characters and relationships
In Past the Shallows, Favel Parrett creates a powerful portrait of a broken family living in isolated Tasmania. The novel explores the damaged relationships between the Curren brothers and their abusive father, alongside connections with supporting characters. Through Miles' perspective, we witness the raw realities of family dysfunction, isolation, and brief moments of tenderness amidst brutality.
These relationships reveal important human experiences including loyalty and betrayal, resilience against cruelty, and the paradoxical nature of love within violent circumstances. The characters embody key themes such as protectiveness, unusual paternal behaviour, and the destructive effects of family secrets.
Miles Curren: Resilient protector and reluctant survivor
Miles serves as the central character through whose eyes we experience the story. As the middle brother in his early teens, he demonstrates quiet strength whilst taking on a parental role for his younger brother Harry. Simultaneously, he works the dangerous abalone diving waters alongside his father, calculating risks to survive each day.
Character traits and behaviour
Miles displays methodical thinking and scepticism as survival mechanisms. He constantly assesses dangerous situations, telling himself that as long as the equipment keeps working and he completes tasks on time, everything will be manageable. Despite this practical mindset, Miles suppresses deep trauma from his mother's death in a car accident.
Surfing provides Miles with emotional escape and transcendence. When riding waves, he experiences moments where the water holds him up and nothing bad seems possible. This represents his need for respite from the harsh realities of his daily life.
Protective self-sacrifice
Miles' character arc centres on protective self-sacrifice for Harry. He gives Harry the significant shark tooth necklace as a symbol of protection and connection. During the climactic storm sequence, Miles carries Harry through freezing, hypothermic waves despite his own exhaustion, demonstrating the extent of his brotherly devotion.
Following the tragedy, Miles' hospitalisation reveals his fractured but enduring resilience. He clutches the returned shark tooth, appearing emotionally adrift yet ultimately departing with his elder brother Joe toward a new life.
Exam tip: Analyse Miles' internal thoughts and observations when responding to unseen texts about isolation in Paper 1. For Band 6 responses, connect his emotional complexity to module rubric qualities about individual and collective human experiences.
Harry Curren: Innocent scapegoat and emotional mirror
Harry, approximately eight years old, stands out as the youngest Curren brother. His childlike innocence creates a stark contrast against the brutal environment surrounding him. He displays enthusiasm, sensory awareness, and generosity despite being overlooked and targeted within his own family.
Victimisation and scapegoating
Harry suffers the worst of his father's abuse, becoming the primary scapegoat for paternal rage. Dad directly tells Harry he never wanted him, using him as an outlet for anger and bitterness. During drinking binges, Dad forces Harry to consume whisky, demonstrating extreme cruelty toward a vulnerable child.
Harry's fear of water (water-phobia) contrasts ironically with his coastal environment, symbolising his deeper anxieties about the dangers surrounding him.
Seeking connection and understanding mortality
Despite his harsh treatment, Harry's warm nature constantly seeks meaningful connections. He befriends the reclusive George Fuller, craves Miles' protection and attention, and demonstrates unusual maturity in understanding mortality for such a young child, recognising that one day he would die.
The tragic storm sequence where Harry clutches the shark tooth before drowning evokes deep empathy. His death symbolises the complete destruction of innocence within this abusive family structure.
Relationship with Miles
Harry's bond with Miles reveals unconditional brotherly love at its purest. In a pivotal moment, Harry kicks Dad to save Miles, prioritising his sibling's safety over his own wellbeing and risking further paternal wrath.
Steve Curren (Dad): Narcissistic destroyer and paradoxical patriarch
Dad represents destructive masculinity patterns throughout the novel. His character embodies narcissistic, dismissive, cruel, violent, and bitter qualities. He internalises his emotional struggles through alcohol abuse and exploitative fishing practices rather than addressing them constructively.
Toxic behaviour patterns
Dad's abalone fishing becomes a predatory outlet for his aggression. The text references illegal taking of abalone, suggesting his disregard for both environmental and legal boundaries. He maintains minimal genuine connection with his sons, viewing Miles merely as useful labour for the boat and dismissing Harry as a waste of money.
The paternity revelation
The storm sequence exposes Dad's deepest behavioural anomaly. He recognises Harry's shark tooth necklace as having belonged to Uncle Nick (his wife's lover), confirming that Harry is not biologically his son. This recognition triggers the ultimate act of violence as he hurls Harry overboard. This paradoxical fatherhood demonstrates rage masking buried emotional pain.
Dad archetypally represents abusive family cycles that Parrett critiques throughout the novel. His inability to break destructive patterns despite moments of recognition illustrates the persistence of toxic masculinity across generations.
Joe Curren: Escapist mentor with self-preservation flaw
Joe, the eldest Curren brother, works as a carpenter and represents a different response to family trauma. He actively breaks the cycle of ancestral dysfunction by building an escape boat, using water therapeutically rather than economically. For Joe, the water serves as escape from harsh reality rather than a workplace.
Abandonment and self-preservation
Despite his intelligence and capability, Joe initially prioritises self-preservation over collective family responsibility. He sails away alone, physically removing himself from the family situation rather than protecting his younger brothers. This emotional and physical distance contrasts sharply with Miles' constant hands-on protection of Harry.
Redemptive return
Joe's redemption arrives at Miles' hospital bedside following the tragedy. He takes responsibility for Miles, finally fulfilling a mentor role, though this realisation comes too late to prevent Harry's death. Joe's arc probes questions about loyalty, timing, and the inconsistencies in how different family members respond to dysfunction.
Supporting figures: Marginal nurturers and enablers
Several peripheral characters illuminate the broader community context and varying responses to the Curren family situation.
Aunty Jean
Aunty Jean provides basic nurturing care, feeding Harry and offering a limited version of guidance. She suspects Harry's true paternity but crucially remains distant, avoiding direct confrontation with Dad about the abuse. Her character represents passive awareness without intervention.
George Fuller
George Fuller, described as a reclusive urban legend, becomes Harry's surrogate grandfather figure. He demonstrates kindness, warmth, empathy, and respect for others' privacy (minding his own business). His dog Jake amplifies this theme of familial replacement, providing Harry with the unconditional affection absent from his biological family.
George's character creates powerful contrast against the abusers, showing that nurturing relationships can exist even in isolated circumstances.
Uncle Jeff
Uncle Jeff amplifies Dad's brutality rather than challenging it. Despite appearing jovial on the surface, he demonstrates casual violence such as slamming Miles' head. His character embodies the fishing community's callous camaraderie, where violence becomes normalised and excused.
Absent family members
Granddad (deceased) haunts the narrative as lost wisdom and a connection to better family traditions. Mum lingers spectrally through car wreckage memories, her absence creating a void that contributes to current family dysfunction.
Key relationships analysis
Understanding the dynamics between specific characters reveals the novel's exploration of human experiences.
Miles and Harry: Brotherly loyalty and self-sacrifice
Relationship Dynamic: Protective Brotherhood
The shark tooth necklace symbolises the protective bond between brothers. Miles carrying the drowning Harry through water demonstrates physical manifestation of emotional devotion. This relationship employs symbolism and sensory endurance techniques to illuminate brotherly loyalty's self-sacrifice as a core human experience.
Dad and Harry: Paternal paradox
Relationship Dynamic: Destructive Paternal Rejection
Dad's stark dialogue stating he never wanted Harry, combined with the act of throwing him overboard, creates foreshadowing of the tragic conclusion. This relationship exposes the paternal paradox where recognition of biological truth leads to ultimate rejection rather than acceptance. It examines how trauma can corrupt fundamental human bonds.
Miles and Dad: Resilient submission to cruelty
Engine blame during the storm and ongoing diving labour reveal power imbalance through internal monologue technique. Miles demonstrates resilient submission to cruelty, surviving through careful navigation of his father's volatile moods whilst suppressing his own trauma and needs.
Harry and George: Nurturing anomaly in isolation
Relationship Dynamic: Surrogate Kinship
The shack refuge and George's role as a good human listener employ contrast technique (hermit versus abuser) to illuminate how nurturing can emerge unexpectedly. This relationship represents a nurturing anomaly within broader isolation, showing that kindness can exist outside traditional family structures.
Joe and Miles: Delayed mentorship
The boat departure followed by bedside return creates a cyclical motif and redemption arc. This relationship explores mentorship's delayed consistency, questioning whether belated responsibility can compensate for earlier abandonment.
Exam strategies for character and relationship analysis
Paper 1 Unseen texts
When analysing unseen texts, integrate dynamics from Past the Shallows to strengthen your response. For example: Like Miles and Harry's protective bond representing fraternal resilience, this excerpt probes familial paradoxes. Make connections between the unseen text's relationships and those in your prescribed text.
Paper 2 Essays
Structure essays around three key relationships to demonstrate depth of understanding. Contextualise your analysis with reference to Tasmania's bystander culture and isolated community dynamics.
Band 6 scaffold structure:
- Topic sentence: Identify the character or relationship focus (e.g., Dad's narcissistic cruelty)
- Evidence: Provide specific textual reference (e.g., storm revelation scene)
- Analysis: Examine technique and meaning (e.g., toxic masculinity motif)
- Link: Connect to module rubric (examines behavioural anomalies arising from trauma)
Practice activities
Developing Your Analysis Skills:
Create character comparison charts listing qualities versus flaws with supporting quotes. Practice 600-word responses comparing characters across texts, such as contrasting Billy Elliot's Jackie (who evolves and grows) with Dad from Past the Shallows (who stagnates in dysfunction).
Develop detailed understanding of how techniques like symbolism, internal monologue, stark dialogue, and contrast reveal character and relationship dynamics.
Remember!
Key Points to Remember:
- Miles embodies protective resilience – He acts as surrogate parent to Harry whilst suppressing his own trauma, using surfing as emotional escape
- Harry represents destroyed innocence – The youngest brother serves as scapegoat for Dad's abuse, seeking connection through relationships like that with George Fuller
- Dad personifies toxic masculinity and paternal paradox – His abuse stems from buried pain, culminating in the revelation of Harry's true paternity and ultimate violence
- Joe demonstrates delayed redemption – The eldest brother initially escapes alone but eventually returns to fulfil his mentor role for Miles
- Relationships reveal paradoxical human experiences – Parrett's character constellation exposes how love and violence coexist within dysfunctional families, perfect for analysing the fragility of human connection amidst brutality