The Last Float Trip – analysis
By Mads Brögger Klausen
Summary
The short story is about a 15-year old girl named Sam. Her father and she have been taking float trips as long as she can remember, but Sam has been offered a scholarship to a boarding school, and therefore this year’s trip seems to be the last one. Along with Sam and her father two others are joining them for the trip, Sam’s uncle Harry and a client of his, whose name is Laydon. With him Laydon is bringing a couple of guns, including a ‘’Nine-millimeter Ruger semiautomatic gun’’ which he intends to teach Sam how to use. She gets pretty good at it, but decides that her father must not know about the shooting. This little secret brings Laydon and Sam closer together and results in a creepy situation one night around the fire after Harry and Sam’s father have gone to bed. Laydon tries to touch Sam on some private spots, but she is clever enough to stop him and walk away. At the end of the trip Sam tells her father that she is now determined to accept the scholarship, maybe because he has discovered a bullet in Sam’s pocket just seconds before.
Who is Sam?
Sam is right on the edge of saying goodbye to her childhood and this trip makes her take the step to become a more independent and sophisticated young woman, this is also the story’s main theme. In the start of the float trip she is very nervous, shy and furthermore she is unsecure about her own person. At the end of the trip Sam has experienced a lot of new things, mostly through Laydon, who is introducing her to things she has never really thought about before, as for example guns and physical involvement with others. Those experiences have formed her to act more like a grown up. As mentioned earlier she has been offered a scholarship, but maybe she does not think of herself as mature enough to accept it before the completion of this last float trip. This shows that she is now capable of taking decision on her own, without conferring with her father.
The relationship between Sam and her father is a little weird. She lost her mother some years back, and this seems to have influenced her father a lot. I think that he is a little afraid of the changes that Sam is going through, because he still wants everything to be as they were when his wife (Sam’s mother) was still alive, and therefore he closes his eyes when Sam is acting mature. This is shown very distinct when Laydon asks Sam to walk on his back. In this situation the father, instead of accepting the role of his daughter, chooses to close his eyes and continue playing harmonica. Actually he ends up leaving his own daughter by the campfire with a man who is almost a stranger to him.
In the very end of the story the father almost gives up Sam, when she tells him that she has accepted the scholarship. His only comment is: ‘’Sure. Right. I’ll miss you here.’’. This shows that he is not comfortable with the situation, but also that he feels like he has been defeated by the matureness of his daughter. Sam actually wants to ask her father why he left her by the campfire, but she feels like they have grown too much apart and therefore she does not dare asking him.
Where and why?
Almost the entire story is taking place on the banks of the river, or in the boats floating down the river. The water is low, it’s July and the weather is very warm. Because of the low water, this is one of the last opportunities to complete a float trip before the summer is over, and this symbolizes the fact that Sam has to break free from her father before the end of this trip, or she is forced to stay with him for another winter, and accept her fate as her father’s memory of old times. This would also mean that she would not be able to become her own individual human being.
The trip down the river symbolizes Sam’s development from an innocent young girl who almost feints by the sound of the smallest compliment, to a strong and independent lady, who is not afraid to make a hard call when life demands it. As she ‘floats’ down the river, she is growing as a human and for that reason it is fair to say that the river is a metaphor to her life, given that the river through all its twists and turns is also growing to become a bigger and more determined river.
Conclusion
This story is a symbol of the progress you will have to make as a human being to grow from a child to an adult, or at least a young adult. To do this, you will have to experience lots of things and from doing so you will be ready to meet whatever the world will throw at you. The float trip is a great way to show the development from child to adult, because the trip makes Sam do things she has never done before. After this trip she has learned a lot more about herself and what she is capable of, and with that knowledge she decides to accept the scholarship for the boarding school, which I think she would not have been able to do if it was not for this trip and especially Laydon who is pushing her boarders.