Message In A Bottle

The glass bottles in which Garrett sends his messages to Catherine (and one to Theresa) represent hope and serve as a motif that demonstrates Life’s Unpredictability. A glass bottle could shatter in an instant if dropped, but it also becomes an incredibly seaworthy vessel that can withstand all kinds of natural forces once it is in the water. The bottles Garrett uses are, of course, “fragile,” and their “course was unpredictable” (1). Their trajectory can vary wildly based on the weather, currents, whether they are picked up by fishing boats and cast back into the water in different places, and so on. Theresa finds one such bottle on Cape Cod, while another woman found one in Virginia. Therefore, the irregular and rather arbitrary paths each bottle takes to its final destination echo the twists and turns with which life presents the characters.

As a symbol of hope—Garrett’s hope that he can manage his sense of loss and that Theresa will forgive him, and Theresa’s hope that she can find a love like the one Garrett writes about—the glass bottles’ fragility and strength also resonate. Hope can feel fragile, just as Theresa hopes she can move on from David’s betrayal, though she is rather cynical to start, but it can also be very strong, as in the end, when her experiences with Garrett have proven to her that she can find love again after great loss.