The Ocean Symbol in Catherine Newman's Sandwich: Waters of Release and Grief

The Ocean as a Setting: A Recurring Shoreline of Memory and Change

The ocean in Catherine Newman's Sandwich is first established as the physical anchor of the family's annual Cape Cod vacation. The prologue describes a “shorelined peninsula jutting into the Atlantic Ocean,” with a tideline “hemmed with stones and mussels and bright green ruffles of seaweed.” This is a place the narrator has visited for twenty years, a setting where “everything hard has been smeared out into pleasant, pastel memories.” The ocean is not merely a backdrop; it is the element that holds the family's history—their summers of hermit crabs, night swimming, and the children's growing independence. It is also the site where the narrator's most private griefs surface, making it a dual symbol of release and sorrow.

The Ocean as a Site of Release and Grief

The most explicit connection between the ocean and grief appears in the narrator's memory of a miscarriage. In chapter 17, she recalls begging Nick to drive her back to the Cape in September, saying, “I just need to swim.” Once in the water, she “bled the baby away into the brine.” The ocean becomes a place where she can physically let go of a pregnancy that ended, a space that absorbs her loss without judgment. This is echoed in a later memory from chapter 9, when, after a different pregnancy loss, she swims alone and feels “the clots slide out of me like jellyfish, back into their natural habitat.” The ocean is both a witness and a receptacle for her reproductive grief.

The narrator's relationship to the ocean is also shaped by a recurring nightmare—mentioned in chapter 14—of a baby falling into the ocean. This dream literalizes her fear of losing a child to the water, transforming the ocean from a place of release into a source of anxiety. Yet even in that nightmare, the ocean is the medium through which her deepest fears are expressed.

The Ocean as a Site of Family Joy and Connection

Alongside grief, the ocean is a place of shared joy. In chapter 2, Nick and Willa run into the waves together, and the narrator remembers four-year-old Jamie's fear of the water, which he eventually overcomes. The ocean is where the family plays, where Willa collects hermit crabs, and where the narrator sings “Sunrise, sunset” with her daughter. These moments of connection are set against the backdrop of the Atlantic, suggesting that the ocean holds both the light and the dark of family life.

The ocean also serves as a space for the narrator and Nick to reconnect. In chapter 41, she runs into the water with him, and he grabs her before she dives under the waves. This physical playfulness contrasts with the weight of her internal grief, showing that the ocean can be a place of lightness as well as sorrow.

The Ocean as a Symbol of Loss and the Unconscious

The ocean also functions as a metaphor for the narrator's accumulated losses. In chapter 41, she reflects, “Loss like a shipwreck. Swim down to it, down, down, down to the pitch-black ocean floor, where nothing is visible and it never dissolves.” Here, the ocean's depths represent the inaccessible, unresolved nature of grief—the losses that cannot be retrieved or processed. The image of the abyssopelagic zone, which Maya identifies, reinforces the idea that some sorrows lie beyond reach.

This symbolic use of the ocean aligns with the novel's broader exploration of reproductive loss, secrecy, and unspoken grief. The narrator's miscarriages and the subsequent abortion are kept secret from almost everyone, and the ocean becomes a private space where she can confront these hidden losses without having to explain them.

The Ocean and the Narrator's Body

The ocean is also intimately tied to the narrator's experience of menopause and aging. In chapter 15, she watches an elderly woman emerge from the ocean in a green wet suit, which triggers a long reflection on her own bodily changes—memory lapses, joint pain, night sweats. The ocean, which once held her pregnancies and losses, now reflects her changing body. This connection is reinforced in chapter 9, where she describes her body as “a satchel full of scars and secrets and menopause.” The ocean, like her body, is a repository of history and transformation.

The narrator's relationship to the ocean also mirrors her ambivalence about her own physicality. She swims to feel “tugged” and “weightless,” as she says in chapter 36, but she also associates the water with the messiness of reproduction. The ocean is both a source of liberation and a reminder of what her body has endured.

The Ocean and the Sandwich Generation

The ocean is a place where the narrator's roles as daughter, mother, and wife converge. She is “halfway in age between her young adult children and her elderly parents,” and the beach is where these generations come together. In chapter 22, she watches her father put his feet in the water while her mother stays on the sand, and she worries about her children swimming. The ocean is a stage for the sandwich generation dynamic, where the narrator must hold the needs of both her aging parents and her grown children.

The ocean also serves as a site of intergenerational memory. The narrator recalls her own childhood summers, her children's early fears, and her parents' presence, all within the same shoreline. This layering of time reinforces the idea that the ocean is a container for the family's collective history, both joyful and painful.

Study Questions

1. How does the ocean function differently for the narrator in moments of grief versus moments of joy?

Answer: In grief, the ocean is a place of release—she swims to let go of a miscarriage, and she imagines her losses sinking to the ocean floor. In joy, it is a place of connection, where she plays with her children and husband. The same water holds both experiences, suggesting that grief and joy are intertwined in her life.

1. What does the narrator's nightmare about a baby falling into the ocean reveal about her fears?

Answer: The nightmare, mentioned in chapter 14, reveals her deep anxiety about losing a child. The ocean, which she associates with both release and danger, becomes the setting for this fear. It suggests that her grief over past losses has not fully resolved and continues to surface in her unconscious.

1. How does the ocean symbolize the narrator's relationship to her own body?

Answer: The ocean is linked to her reproductive history—her pregnancies, miscarriages, and the abortion—as well as to her menopausal body. She swims to feel weightless, but she also associates the water with the physical messiness of loss. The ocean reflects her ambivalence about her body as both a source of life and a site of pain.

1. In what ways does the ocean serve as a bridge between generations in the novel?

Answer: The ocean is where the narrator's parents, children, and husband all come together. It is a place where she remembers her own childhood, watches her children grow, and cares for her aging parents. The ocean holds the family's shared history, making it a symbol of the sandwich generation's role as a connector between past and future.