Flush

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2005

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-10

Chapters 11-15

Chapters 16-21

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Themes

Fragile Environment

Paine is outraged by Dusty not simply because the casino owner is performing an illegal activity but because of the impact that the flushed waste is having on marine life and plants. The Florida Keys are considered a national marine sanctuary. The ecosystem it represents is fragile and can be affected by any number of actions by the greedy or the thoughtless.

Paine has demonstrated a track record of intervening in attacks on nature. He confiscates two Labrador retrievers who are being beaten by their owners. He stops a fisherman from stringing an illegal gill net that will kill all the marine creatures that get tangled in it. Paine is also annoyed by the party boat occupants who run their boats aground and tear up the seagrass used as wildlife habitat because it takes years for the grass to grow back. Even though he works for a rescue service, he feels more inclined to leave tourists stranded than help them.

Paine acts to prevent any tampering with the environment. Individually, these episodes of tampering are minor incursions, but collectively they represent a major threat to the delicate ecosystem where the Underwoods live. When Dusty begins dumping waste, Paine views this as an affront to nature. The activity is disrespectful enough all by itself, but the toxic waste will deposit dangerous bacteria on the beaches where children swim. The endangered sea turtle population may be further decimated by pollution on the beaches where the species lays its eggs.

Although Paine’s sinking of the Coral Queen is viewed as the behavior of a lunatic by his friends and neighbors, his actions serve a greater purpose. He is trying, in his own small way, to maintain a delicate ecosystem and protect nature.

Fighting the Good Fight

Over the course of the novel, Paine spends much of his time either in jail or incapacitated after he breaks his hands. However, his initial action of sinking the Coral Queen provides the impetus for a number of other characters to pick up the torch and carry on. Paine enlists Noah in his cause when he asks his son to find proof of Dusty’s illegal dumping activities.

Clearly, Noah shares the same ethical concerns for the environment as his father. This isn’t particularly surprising. What is surprising is the volunteers he collects along the way who demonstrate an equal commitment to fighting the good fight. Abbey has no intention of letting her big brother get into trouble all by himself. She ably demonstrates her ability to take care of herself by biting both Luno and Bull when they try to subdue her. She also engages in some independent surveillance by taking the family security camera and trying to catch Dusty’s crew in the act of dumping waste into the bay. Abbey clearly believes that these risks are worth taking to protect the Keys from pollution.

Shelly finds herself pulled into the Underwood family mission principally because she believes that Dusty has had Lice killed, and she wants payback. By infiltrating the casino boat as a bartender, she provides information about Dusty’s plans and later waylays the Coast Guard snitch, who is preventing evidence from being gathered against Dusty. She even helps Noah flush food dye down the toilets to prove that waste is being dumped into the bay.

Lice initially agrees to help when Paine offers to give him a valuable boat. Ultimately, he makes a statement to the Coast Guard about Dusty’s nefarious activities without expecting compensation for his help. Though his motives have more to do with his love for Shelly, Lice still does the right thing in the end.

Grandpa Bobby returns from his quest to retrieve the Amanda Rose to help his family. He risks exposure and arrest so that he can defend his grandchildren when they are in peril. All these characters prove in various ways that fighting the good fight is what matters most.

Bigshots and Bullies

The novel uses Paine’s environmental activism to explore the damage that abuses of power can do to the ecosphere and the people who inhabit it. The character who demonstrates this principle of corruption is Dusty and, to a lesser extent, Jasper. Dusty’s illegal waste dumping is only one of the unethical tactics he uses to feed his need to be a local bigshot, no matter who he hurts in the process. Even though Dusty rose through the ranks as a fishing guide in the same was that Paine did, his ambition takes him in an entirely different direction. He begins by convincing a local Indian tribe to let him dock a casino boat on their land. He then cheats the tribe by embezzling earnings every night. To protect his operation, he hires Luno, a brutal thug who will happily intimidate and harm anyone who gets in his employer’s way.

Dusty fires Lice from his crew when he learns that former fiancée, Shelly, has decided that she prefers Lice to Dusty. Dusty also controls a member of the Coast Guard staff who owes him a large amount in gambling debts so that the casino owner is alerted to any Coast Guard inspections that might uncover his dumping activities. Whenever he is caught, he bribes or blackmails politicians and lawyers to keep himself from being charged or convicted of any wrongdoing.

To a lesser extent, Jaspar is also obsessed with the same urge to be a bigshot as his father. Since he’s only in high school, he satisfies this urge by becoming the local bully. He’s developed a personal animosity against Noah because Jasper perceives the Underwoods as a threat to his father’s standing in the community. Both father and son learn the same lesson in the end. As Donna would say, “What goes around comes around” (258).