The Boat by Alistair MacLeod, The Character Arc

  In the beginning, we feel the father starts his transformational arc as a selfish man. He spends all of his time on the boat, or in his bedroom escaping from reality. He selfishly ignores his wife, and any conflict that arises with the daughters, i.e he doesn't help his wife parent their children. In the whole story he is listening to his radio, smokes one to many cigarette and reads mounds of books.

  One August afternoon, the Father was asked by his daughters to take some tourist for a ride on the boat. The Father agreed and did so with a kinda unseen happiness. He was happy to have the company of the tourist because it was another means of escape, but with some social interactions.  He proceeded to go up to the tourists cabin afterwards, and have a few to many drinks. When he was good and drunk he started to sing for them, this being very symbolic part to the story because this is an escape we do not see until this point, it is the start of his transformational arc.

   The biggest step the Father takes in his transformational arc is when he gets ill, because he starts realizing that he needs his son, something that he has never needed. He never actually says that he wants his son to work on the boat with him, but the son soon realizes that his Dad needs him and that he can put his life on pause until he can get back to it. This is such a huge step for the Father because he never truly acknowledged his son has a good aspect of his life, so the fact that he finally has a relationship forming with his son is very important.

The end product of the Fathers transformational is when him and his son have worked together for many fishing seasons, and the son finally connects all of the fathers decisions and actions, you get that final step of the Fathers transformational arc. You completely understand every decision that was made, and every feeling that he had. He always had the dream of being something bigger then a fisherman, but because he was the only son he had an obligation to work with his Father on his boat, and then follow the same path. He lived all his life for obligation, instead of his dreams and happiness. So when all these dots get connected the final step is taken. The Father is now a honorable character, compared to the selfish one you see in the rest of the story.