81 pages • 2 hours read
Paolo BacigalupiShip Breaker
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2010A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 6-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary
Nailer awakes to wind and rain pouring into the door of the shack as the storm roars up the beach. He hurriedly gathers up his few belongings and then tries to wake his father. His father won’t wake, and Nailer contemplates leaving him to his fate. The storm is a “city killer,” a storm strong enough to wipe out the beach and even drive wrecked tankers up onto the shacks. Moving his father will endanger Nailer’s life, taking valuable time that Nailer needs to evacuate inland. Nailer grabs his belongings and turns to leave. At the door, however, he changes his mind. Cursing his foolishness, Nailer sets out in the storm to find Sadna and Pima for help.
Pima and Sadna’s shack has already blown away, but they are still on the beach, struggling to tie down a skiff. When Sadna sees Nailer, she yells at him to help Pima with her side of the skiff. Nailer helps in spite of his hurt shoulder, but when the skiff is tied up and Sadna tells him to run inland for shelter, Nailer says he can’t leave because his father won’t wake up. Sadna tells Pima to guide Nailer to the rock shelter higher up; she herself runs to rescue Nailer’s father.
As Pima and Nailer climb inland to a small limestone cave, Nailer turns around and is amazed to see that everything on the beach has been swept away. He attempts to apologize to Pima, as it appears that Sadna has disappeared too. Pima hushes him, telling him that her mother is tougher than any storm. Still, Nailer feels guilty; he knows Pima’s mother is worth 100 of his father.
Chapter 7 Summary
Content Warning: This Chapter Summary contains references to violence, including child abuse.
The storm abates after two nights. Pima and Nailer leave their cave on the third day and return to the beach, astonished at how bright and clean everything looks after the storm. Greeting them are Moon Girl and Pearly, but the storm has swept away or killed Tick Tock, Sloth, and Bapi. Lucky Strike is giving food to the survivors, but the representatives of Lawson & Carlson, the conglomerate that buys the salvage from the scavengers, are nowhere to be seen, having abandoned the beach before the storm.
Nailer and Pima look for her mother in the crowd around Lucky Strike. The man has surrounded himself with hired thugs to keep the crowd from rioting and stealing the food. As the wealthiest resident of Bright Sands, Lucky Strike runs gambling, sex work, and drugs, as well as antibiotics and food for the community. Among his hired thugs is a “half-man” named Tool, whom Pima recognizes from her mother’s old heavy crew. Tool is a biotechnical creation with human, dog, tiger, and hyena genes. He snarls at the crowd when they get too close, and Lucky Strike tells them that the half-man will eat them raw if they get out of line.
Sadna and Richard appear, and Sadna sweeps Pima up in a hug. After acknowledging that Nailer saved his life, Richard hugs Nailer, gripping Nailer’s stitches painfully. Richard nearly killed Sadna when she woke him up in the storm, but Sadna punched him into compliance and they escaped the storm’s wrath. Nailer worries that Richard will seek retribution for the beating, but Richard is sober and doesn’t seem to want revenge. Rationalizing that if Lucky Strike has hired Tool, he will surely hire him (Richard) as well, Richard leaves Pima, Sadna, and Nailer without a glance.
With all the scrap and rust buyers gone, there is no reason to work on the wrecks, and the community comes together to bury the dead, build new shelters, and scavenge for food. Pima and Nailer leave the beach to go crabbing on a barrier island made newly accessible by the storm. While searching for crabs in the tide pool, they discuss the Accelerated Age beach houses beneath the water. The term “Accelerated Age” is an allusion to the Great Acceleration, a time beginning in the 1950s that resulted in both enormous economic growth and environmental devastation. It’s unclear why people with so much money would put buildings where the ocean would eventually drown them, and Pima notes that even rich people could be foolish. The Teeth, a line of submerged high-rise buildings that block the entrance to the bay, are a grim example of the hubris of the former age, and Nailer wonders if there would be any good salvage there. Pima points out that there is much easier salvage on the tankers; nobody is interested in the rusted steel of the ancient beachside buildings.
They begin to walk back to the beach, and Pima tells Nailer that he probably shouldn’t have saved his father, given that all Richard does is beat him. Nailer too is conflicted but believes that other people know best when they tell him that family is important. Pima knows that if Nailer gives Richard enough chances, Richard will eventually kill his son.
As Pima begins to collect the dead fish that she finds on the island’s tip, Nailer sees the wreck of a clipper ship in the distance. For Nailer, it is his dreams becoming reality, but Pima sees it as glorious salvage. They both run to the ship.
Chapter 8 Summary
Pima and Nailer clamber aboard the wrecked clipper ship. Inside, they find rooms filled with luxury foods, carved furniture, and paintings. Taking the entire ship as private salvage will be impossible because it is too large to keep secret, and the two of them can’t keep it by force. They decide to take only what they can carry. Nailer discovers a dining room with silver platters and silverware. This alone will pay off their work debt and set them up for life. They exultantly fill a large bag.
In one stateroom, they find the dead body of the captain, and Pima rifles his pockets, taking the cash she finds there. In another room and in the wheelhouse, they find the dead bodies of four half-men. The ship must belong to an extremely wealthy person because no one else could afford the cost of that many half-men. In another stateroom, Nailer discovers the body of a beautiful young girl buried under a pile of unsecured furniture. She is the owner of the ship, and she wears enough jewelry to finance Nailer’s escape from Bright Sands. As Pima and Nailer prepare to cut the girl’s fingers off to get her gold rings, the girl blinks.
Chapter 9 Summary
Pima and Nailer are shocked to find out that the beautiful rich girl is alive. Believing that the girl is probably dying anyway, Pima offers to slit her throat as a mercy. Nailer begs Pima to wait, remembering when he was at Sloth’s mercy in the oil reservoir. Because they cannot salvage the ship if the owner is still living, the girl is worth more to them dead than alive. Nevertheless, Nailer finally convinces Pima not to kill the girl, and they pull her out from under the debris. Surprisingly, the girl is unhurt.
Pima grudgingly helps her off the ship, and Nailer grabs the bag of silver. Knowing they cannot make it back to the beach by nightfall, they decide to make camp on the island. Nailer grabs food and blankets from the ship, and Pima goes back for fire supplies. They wrap the girl in blankets in front of the fire and survey the luxury foodstuffs surrounding them.
Once the girl wakes again, Pima gives her water, which the girl greedily drinks. She eats an orange with Pima’s help before thanking them and falling back asleep. Watching her sleep, Nailer is conflicted about the girl’s survival, believing that it might have been easier for them if she had died.
Chapter 10 Summary
Later that evening, Nailer watches Pima feed the girl more orange and knows that he is hurtling towards a different future that includes the swank girl. When Pima tells the girl that it was “Lucky Boy” who argued to keep her alive, the girl decides that she is now “Lucky Girl.” She teases Nailer about how her gold and jewels would have made them rich and says that her finger bones would have made a lucky talisman for him. Stung, he again reflects that it might have been better to kill her but recognizes that there are factors that might make her valuable. Her father will pay more than her jewelry is worth to get her back. She affirms that her people will track her down using the GPS and distress systems on the ship. Nailer reminds her that for now she only has him and Pima, who have nothing to lose. The only way she can be more valuable than the rings on her fingers is by taking them away with her when her father finds her.
Lucky Girl agrees to the terms. Holding her palm, Nailer scratches it with his knife and swears a crew blood oath with her. Pima does the same. Lucky Girl swears, “I got your back, you got mine” (116).
Later, Pima questions Nailer about whether Lucky Girl is actually crew. Thinking of Sloth, Nailer replies that “crew” doesn’t seem to mean anything anyway. Getting out of Bright Sands is the only thing that matters.
Chapter 11 Summary
The next morning, Nailer awakes to a searing pain in his shoulder. The girls inform him that he must cook breakfast, and he sends Lucky Girl to the boat to get fresh water and sugar. She is eager to help. Pima is unsure about Lucky Girl’s loyalty. During the night, Lucky Girl hid some of her jewelry, and she refuses to answer any of Pima’s questions about her identity.
Lucky Girl returns with the water and sugar, but Nailer gasps when he grabs the water due to the pain in his shoulder. The girls examine his wound and determine that it is severely infected. There are antibiotics on the ship, and Lucky Girl, who learned first aid in school, tells Nailer that he must make the trip down to the wreck. Fearing dying like his mother, “in a haze of flies and fever pain” (126), Nailer agrees to go to the ship.
Unfortunately, the ocean has swept all the medicine off the ship. Pima suggests using Lucky Girl’s gold jewelry to buy antibiotics from Lucky Strike. Nailer disagrees, knowing that it will tip off the scavengers to the existence of the wreck. Lucky Girl sharply reminds both of them that the ship is hers, not salvage. When Pima retorts that Lucky Girl is only alive because of Nailer, who now has the “fever eye” (a condition that affects people with fever who are about to die), Lucky Girl says that she has no idea what fever eye is.
Nailer presses Lucky Girl for information about her family. She finally tells them that she is Nita Chaudbury and that her father is the head of Patel Global Transit Company. Angered, Pima calls her one of the “damn blood buyers” (128). Patel Global Transit Company buys scrap from Bright Sands and is one of the reasons that scavenging takes so many lives: It cuts corners in worker safety in order to make more money. When Nita states that she doesn’t know anything about that part of the company, Pima tells her that she is lucky they didn’t know who she was when they rescued her.
Nailer has been watching the horizon while the girls fight. He notices a group of people coming towards the island from the shipping yards. Nita uses a spyglass to see if they are her people, but they all have tattoos. When Pima looks through the spyglass, she sees that Nailer’s father is leading the group.
Chapters 6-11 Analysis
Bacigalupi further develops the characters in this section, which revolves around the theme of loyalty and survival. Nailer, after his experience in the oil reservoir, begins to see his life differently. He’s always admired the clipper ships and longed to sail on them, but now it seems imperative that he leave the beach and seek his fortune elsewhere. However, he also wrestles with the idea of loyalty—especially to his father, his only surviving family. He makes the difficult choice to save his father from the storm, but it is truly Pima’s family that he cares for. He begrudges the time he must spend to pull his father to safety but helps Pima and Sadna tie their boat safely without a second thought. Sadna reciprocates the feeling; she treats Nailer like a son and sends him to safety with Pima. She also saves Nailer’s father—not out of any feelings towards Richard, but because Richard is Nailer’s family. She is the one person both Pima and Nailer rely on absolutely and is more of a parent to Nailer than his father. When Nailer looks back from the top of the hill and sees the devastation that the storm is wreaking, he knows he shouldn’t have asked Sadna to rescue Richard since she means far more to both him and Pima than Richard ever will. The realization that Richard will never be a father to him begins a character arc that will ultimately pit Nailer against his father in order to save his true family—his crew.
Bacigalupi characterizes Nailer as a dreamer; he is always looking to the horizon, symbolic of the future, and seeing clipper ships. His yearning to be on the open ocean is so strong that at times it hurts. Pima is more pragmatic. She is resigned to her life on Bright Sands and looks forward only to making heavy crew before she is cut from light crew. This juxtaposition of the two friends is clear when she murmurs, “Wish you were here” to Nailer (76). This statement is both an allusion and verbal irony. “Wish You Were Here” is the title of a Pink Floyd song, and the speaker in this song is under the illusion that the hell he lives in is actually a paradise. Pima’s statement is also ironic, as the cliché “wish you were here” originated as a catchphrase for travel postcards picturing desirable destinations. Beach Sands after the storm may look like paradise, but both Nailer and Pima know that it’s a sinkhole of addiction and danger.
The symbolism in Nailer’s escape from the tanker is now apparent, grounded in water and rebirth. When he first falls into the reservoir, his fear wars with his elation at the discovery of a large amount of oil—enough to allow him to escape Bright Sands. However, he must confront the fact that he will die if he doesn’t make his predicament public. In the end, faced with dying thirsty, in the dark, and alone, he decides that as he is already metaphorically dead; there is nothing left for him to do but take the risk and dive into the oil. When he shoots out of the tanker into the water, he emerges reborn. He no longer views the beach and his crew in the same way; he tells Pima that “Crew don’t mean anything except we’re all sweating together on the same ship” (117), a departure from his prior belief that crew has his back. Bright Sands is no longer a home, and without ties to his father or his crew, he is free to leave his old life and explore the world. He also has a different view of death. He is willing to take risks to better himself because, in his mind, his current life is only slightly better than death.
The storm sets up the motif of nature’s vengeance against humankind. Once all of humankind’s structures are erased from the beach, Pima and Nailer see how beautiful it is without the scavengers’ detritus. The storm also demonstrates the randomness of death. Tick Tock, who has the luck of an intact family unit, dies with them. Bapi, who has a powerful position on the scavenging crews, disappears without a trace. Even Sloth, who has neither family nor position, is killed. The violence of the storm is indiscriminate, and nothing that humanity builds can stand against even the slow destruction of rising sea levels, as demonstrated by the drowned beach houses and pricey oceanfront high-rises. Ironically, the most expensive property has less value than the wrecked tankers; the buildings are not even salvageable for the rusty steel of their girders.
The social-Darwinian construct of “survival of the fittest” is put to the test once the storm passes. Lucky Strike is willing to feed the community, but only on credit. Tellingly, he has put aside food for this contingency, and he is sure to recoup his expenses as there is no one else who has food. However, he must hire violent thugs for this scheme, because the beach’s lawlessness is such that the strong will take from the weaker. Without a crew, Lucky Strike also has to hire his squad from the most dangerous characters on the beach, including Richard. Once Richard is in charge of the brute squad, Nailer will have to confront his violent father on behalf of his new crew, forcing him to make a choice between loyalty and survival. For the moment, even while the community pulls together to bury the dead and scavenge for food, they continue to compete for resources; Nailer and Pima go out to the island to scavenge because, as Pima states, there’s “better scavenge without competition” (73).
Pima’s belief that luck and smarts are both necessary for survival is prevalent throughout the Beach Sands community. Nailer’s father dubs him “Lucky Boy,” and his crew hails him as lucky when he escapes from the oil on the tanker. Finding the wrecked clipper ship is also lucky, but as with the discovery of oil that threatens to kill him, the luck is a double-edged sword: Nailer could never capitalize on finding the ship other than via light salvage. Every time he is “lucky,” it is balanced by bad luck, so it is truly his skill and intelligence that help him to survive. Relying too much on luck and not enough on their own smarts and skills will land the ship breakers in a situation like Sloth’s.
Bacigalupi highlights the disparity between the wealthy and the scavengers when Lawson & Carlson leaves the Bright Sands community to its fate in the storm. Every scrap buyer leaves well before the storm hits, having the advantage of weather satellites to foresee the city killer. They evacuate no one except themselves and provide no assistance after the storm, when the community needs food and shelter. Pima and Nailer are astounded by the amount and quality of the food on the wrecked clipper ship; they eat better than the wealthiest man on Bright Sands just off the wreckage. They wonder if Lucky Girl is wealthy enough to have a house—that being the pinnacle of wealth in their world—when in truth she has many houses, staffed with servants. The scale of Lucky Girl’s normal life is far beyond what they can envision.
Nailer ties this wealth gap to the motif of chance when he looks at Pima and Lucky Girl and sees “two girls, two different lives, two different bits of luck” (109). Pima is lucky because she is strong and smart, unlike Lucky Girl, who was born into her luck. The juxtaposition of Pima and Lucky Girl leads to the confrontation on the clipper ship when Pima learns that Lucky Girl is Nita Chaudbury. Nita is everything Pima cannot be, and her company is a large part of why. The allusions to tattoos are also telling; Pima has tattoos that show whom she belongs to: what clan, what crew, who has her back. Her tattoos are necessary for survival. Likewise, her scars detail a life that is hard but also prove that she is a survivor. Nita, however, is smooth and unmarked. She is unscarred because she has a privileged life—easy and protected. She doesn’t need tattoos because she is at the top of the social hierarchy. She doesn’t necessarily “belong” to anyone; they all belong to her.
The disparity between the rich and those in poverty also echoes human hubris in the Accelerated Age. The scavengers endure unnecessary hardships—for example, masks insufficient to filter toxic petroleum fumes—to make money for the corporations. Corporate decisions about the bottom line affect those in poverty in ways that the corporate owners never see or simply don’t care to see. This attitude also affected the environment in the Accelerated Age; fossil fuel use caused the polar ice caps melting and flooding the coastlines, as well as the city killers that now devastate the scavengers’ lives.
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