The Mountain in the Sea

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

The Macaroon

An innocuous object that the novel only briefly mentions, the macaroon demonstrates how symbols work and how an object can have different significations in different contexts. For Ha, the baked good is an icebreaker, a treat she brings to introduce herself to the team. The macaroon represents greeting and gift-giving and reveals Ha’s interest in making connections. She adds another layer to the dessert’s meaning when she jokes about baking it. The comment alludes to her role as a scientist and evokes connotations of female domesticity that Ha rejects: “I would never bake” (25). This implies that Ha has no time or interest in hobbies that she deems trivial and may compromise her definition of authority. In addition, the macaroon suggests a future in which making something from scratch, in a world where everything is automated and processed, is an anomaly.

For the other characters, the macaroon takes on equally distinct meanings. For Altantsetseg’s voice translator, the faulty device doesn’t know how to compute words that have a specific regional or cultural signification. The device translates the macaroon as a “cookie thing,” highlighting how language is contextual and not universal. For Evrim, who doesn’t eat, the macaroon is a sentimental and aesthetic object: “It was a gift to me, and I enjoy looking at it” (60). Evrim’s attachment to the gift demonstrates consciousness: The object evokes feelings of gratitude and belonging. Ha gives Evrim something edible, and for Evrim the macaroon comes to symbolize being part of humanity. For Altantsetseg, the macaroon provides the opportunity to make a power play to denigrate Evrim as inferior to humans and merely a “robot.” In taking away Evrim’s macaroon, Altantsetseg symbolically takes away the android’s humanity.

The Con Dao Sea Monster

An ironic symbol, the Con Dao Sea Monster implicates humankind as the true brutal villain. In retelling tales about the monster, Son doesn’t cast it as a threat but rather as an organic entity taking revenge on humanity’s degradation, waste, and environmental exploitation. Son theorizes that the creature “was something natural, reacting to the overfishing, the constant harm to the reefs. It was life thrown out of balance, lashing out” (98). In Son’s eyes, the sea monster symbolizes conservation and rejection of human intrusion and arrogance. Son is relieved that the creature may in fact be safe from harm after the evacuation of the islands. The story of the monster has been passed down through generations, and the myth gains credibility because the archipelago was historically a site where true human monstrosity occurred, from the tiger cages to the murder of enslaved people.

The sea monster is in fact not a myth: Ha and Evrim verify that the creature is the newly discovered species of octopus. However, the symbolism of the sea monster as a protective force of nature still applies to the octopuses. They fiercely protect their habitat, and Ha admits, “We’re monsters to the octopuses: hunters, destroyers, killing their relatives and laying waste to their world. And they are monsters to us: their motivations inexplicable, their minds totally alien” (175). Ha theorizes that the term monster may be more appropriately applied to the octopuses in the Latin sense of the word: “Monere. A warning. A portent” (175-76). Ha believes that the octopuses kill humans not because they’re dangerous or malicious but simply because humans mean nothing to them. When they kill Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan, Ha explains to Evrim, “We’re nothing to them. An impediment to their movement, or something to be avoided […] They killed her simply because she was in the way” (443). Neither humans nor octopuses cared about what happened to the other species. Ha concludes that their mutual indifference to each other is the true monster.

The AI Captain of the Sea Wolf

The fishing vessel’s AI captain symbolizes the enigmatic and horrifying merging of transnational capitalism and the existential threat of advanced technology. Although the name “Wolf Larsen” is facetiously stenciled on the wheelhouse door, a reference to Jack London’s 1904 novel The Sea Wolf (and the 1941 film based on it), the AI captain isn’t an android but a system. Its power is even more indomitable because it’s a decentralized, cloaked, and impenetrable authority much like the transnational corporation DIANIMA itself, which owns the ship. The ship’s AI system exists behind “[t]he opaque, hardened glass of the wheelhouse. Its reinforced steel-plate door” (103). Eiko wants to take revenge on DIANIMA but admits how ineffectual it is to fight something so large and anonymous: “Who was he kidding? He would never have a chance of getting back at any of them, hiding behind that shield of mirrored glass. None of them would ever come within his reach” (450). Eiko concedes that the true enemy isn’t just one ship’s AI but an entire economic system and culture of greed.

The AI captain’s purpose is to calculate losses, maximize profits, and maintain hierarchies. Eiko comments, “There was an economy to be respected in this system of exploitation. Everything had a calculated value, and that value was always less than the value of what was below it on the chain” (167). As a program designed by humans, the AI captain isn’t the trope of the good robot gone rogue. Rather, it’s a system that humans intentionally programmed to practice their own greed and indifference more efficiently.