43 pages • 1 hour read
Lauren WolkBeyond the Bright Sea
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Prologue-Chapter 5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Prologue and Chapter 1 Summary
The novel’s prologue introduces its protagonist, 12-year-old Crow, and its setting, one of the Elizabeth Islands off the coast of Massachusetts, where Crow lives with a man named Osh. In addition, the prologue alludes to an event that occurs later in the novel, when Crow will see a mysterious fire burning on neighboring Penikese. Her curiosity about this leads to the novel’s main conflicts.
The first chapter flashes recounts what Crow knows about her origins. No one knows exactly where she came from; when she was just a few hours old, Osh found her alone, washed ashore in a small boat. Osh took the baby in and has cared for her ever since. He named her Crow because she was “hoarse with crying” when he found her, and “cawed over and over” (4). Ironically, Crow resembles a crow, with a hooked nose, dark skin and eyes, skinny limbs, and a birthmark in the shape of a feather on her cheek.
Osh comes from an unnamed foreign place, and speaks a different language in addition to English. Together with their cat Mouse, Osh and Crow live a peaceful, if isolated, life on their island. They make their living from fishing and catching lobsters and from Osh’s paintings. They have some contact with the neighboring island of Cuttyhunk, where their closest friend, Miss Maggie, lives. At first, Crow does not know “why so many of the Cuttyhunk Islanders stayed away from me, as if they were afraid, when I was smaller than any of them” (6). Later, she learns many islanders suspect she comes from Penikese Island, which formerly served as a site where people suffering from the highly contagious disease leprosy were quarantined.
Chapters 2-3 Summary
Crow describes how the resourceful Osh built their cottage from pieces of wood salvaged from old boats and bits of flotsam, even finding decorative pieces to give the place some charm. Crow also loves beachcombing and finding bits of interesting rubbish: “[a]nother thing I had in common with crows: our habit of prizing the poorest of riches” (10). Crow and Osh lead a simple life on the island—building, making, and growing as much as they can. Osh even makes his paintbrushes from bits of Mouse’s fur, and mixes his paints to create his seascapes and pictures of plants and animals.
Aside from Osh, Maggie and Mouse are Crow’s closest companions. Tough and independent, Maggie lives alone, gardening and raising sheep, cows, and chickens. She looks after Osh and Crow and brings them food and other supplies. Crow admires the ruggedness of Maggie, who can do things like slaughter and stew a set of pet rabbits that froze in the winter cold.
Despite the peace of their quiet life, Crow cannot help but wonder about where she comes from. All Osh can tell her is that when he first found her, Maggie made sure to see if anyone in the surrounding area was looking for a missing baby. Though she is restless, Crow also feels secure with Osh, affirming, “I’d already become Osh’s. And he had become mine” (12).
There are frequent shipwrecks in an area of the craggy Elizabeth Islands known as the Graveyard. Because of this, local lore tells of people finding real treasure nearby. Legend even has it that Captain Kidd buried his somewhere in the Elizabeths. Crow says, “I have to admit that when I finally found some treasure of that sort I was glad, for many reasons” (18-19), foreshadowing the fact that she will eventually discover her own large treasure hoard after she learns the truth about her family background.
Chapters 4-5 Summary
Crow learns about why the people on Cuttyhunk keep their distance from her when she overhears a conversation between Osh and Maggie. Osh insists that she’s “still too young” to know, but Maggie argues, “it would be better if she understood” (22) that many people think she was cast away from Penikese, where Massachusetts once quarantined people suffering from leprosy. Since leprosy is contagious, the residents of Cuttyhunk fear that if Crow came from Penikese, she will infect them. Thus, they keep their distance from her out of caution.
Osh and Maggie think that the way the islanders treat Crow is ridiculous. However, when Maggie attempts to take her to school, a young boy calls her “the leper,” and the headmaster, Mr. Henderson, turns her away, disinfecting the door handle as they leave (26). Maggie explains to Crow why people fear leprosy so much: It deforms bodies and damages nerves so badly that victims become dangerously unable to feel pain. She admits there is no cure “[t]hough the Bible says Jesus cured lepers,” sometimes with “miracles” and sometimes with “faith” (29).
Maggie assumes responsibility for teaching Crow reading, math, and other basics. The self-reliant Osh insists that she will be no worse off. In his eyes, Crow will learn what she needs to know simply by living and learning to take care of herself. Crow is highly curious, and pesters Maggie about things like her curly hair and the feather-shaped birthmark on her cheek. Maggie believes Crow’s family hasn’t reached either because they don’t know about her, or because they don’t want to admit that she did come from Penikese.
Osh tells Crow that no matter her origins, the island she shares with him “is your home. You don’t need another one” (32). He reassures Crow that he and Maggie wouldn’t treat her differently even if she came from Penikese. However, when she is the only one of the three to fall ill, she secretly worries. She is enormously relieved when she gets well.
Prologue-Chapter 5 Analysis
The prologue of Beyond the Bright Sea foreshadows the events to come in the course of the novel, establishing that something significant related to her origins is going to happen to Crow. The prologue also sets up the tone of the novel, which strikes a balance between revealing information about Crow’s life and keeping some things a mystery.
The novel links its key characters by shrouding all of their origins in mystery. Osh, Crow’s adoptive father, had a “life before the island” and Crow, but the novel does not divulge specific details. Their friend Miss Maggie, who is devoted to taking care of them, shares a similar background, having “never said much about why she’d come to Cuttyhunk,” other than the fact that she came from a farming life “far from the sea, and that she had lost it all” (33). Their makeshift family unit began when Osh found Crow, and their vague personal histories highlight how little they need the outside world when they have each other.
Their isolated environment is another bond, and a symbol for the inner strength of all three characters. The novel stresses the ruggedness of Osh’s small island and of Maggie’s Cuttyhunk and the characters’ resourcefulness. Osh builds their cottage “from bits of lost ships” atop “a bed of earth and sea muck,” and makes their living by fishing, lobstering, and painting with homemade pigments (1).
The primary trajectory of Beyond the Bright Sea is Crow’s gradual discovery of her past, and the first clue comes when she overhears Osh and Maggie discussing the possibility that she was born on the island of Penikese, the site of a former leper colony. Crow’s reaction to overhearing this demonstrates key aspects of her personality. First, she is curious, and wants not only to know what Osh and Maggie are talking about, but also to discover whether it is true. Second, unlike many Elizabeth Islands residents, she does not fear a connection to the lepers: She “didn’t want to be from a colony of sick people,” but eventually grows to empathize with them (25).
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