The Boys in the Boat

In terms of Joe’s connection with family, his early life was marked by loss, abandonment, temporary living arrangements, and solitude. The catalyst for Joe’s tragic childhood was the death of his mother when he was four years old. At that time, Joe’s brother lived away from him at college; his father, Harry, fled to Canada because he could not cope with Joe’s mother’s death; and Joe was sent to live with an aunt he hardly knew. When Joe was five years old, he had already taken two train trips—alone—that nearly spanned the country. When Harry remarried and started another family, he abandoned Joe again, coerced to do so by his new wife, Thula. When Joe is in college, Thula dies. Harry promptly tells Joe of his plans to build a house, and he wants Joe to live with him and his half-siblings again, as a family. Despite Harry’s absence from most of Joe’s life, remnants of a connection remain that bring each one back to the other. Joe recalls Pocock’s rowing advice, “Harmonize with the other fellows” (237), applying it to his relationship with his father: “Joe’s feelings began to shift—moving around like notes on a musical staff, bits and pieces of new themes starting to fall into place” (237).

There are times in Joe’s life when he must work at “harmonizing,” and there are other times when it comes naturally, as in the first time he meets Joyce—his childhood sweetheart whom he would eventually marry and start a family with. As a child on the school bus, Joe used to play his guitar and sing, and Joyce started “singing along [with him] in perfect two-part harmony” (56). Over the years, Joe and Joyce form an authentic connection. Though they often spend time apart with great distance between them, they both feel the presence of their mutual trust, love, and support wherever they are. Joe is fulfilled by his connection with Joyce, even when they don’t see each other for days, weeks, or months at a time. This contrasts with feelings of unfulfillment, inadequacy, and distrust that can result from abandonment.

Early on, Joe promises himself, “He would never again let himself depend on [friends], though, nor on his family, nor on anyone else, for his sense of who he was. He would survive, and he would do it all on his own” (59). Though this makes for an independent person, it initially hinders his ability to open up, connect with his teammates, and progress toward becoming a great rower. While mentoring Joe, Pocock displays how skillful he is at connecting with Joe, gently encouraging him to express himself. Pocock begins by engaging Joe through manual labor, something Joe has done his entire life. Joe reacts positively to Pocock’s lessons about wood, building on what Joe has already learned from Charlie McDonald. Rather than directly addressing Joe’s trust issues, which would only drive Joe further into himself, Pocock uses the wood the boats are made from to allude to Joe’s psychological walls. In working with ideas that Joe feels comfortable with, he helps Joe open up to and connect with other people.

The connection that Joe eventually builds with his teammates lasts for the rest of his life. A unique, extreme example of the teammates’ connection is their need for Don’s presence in the boat during the Olympic race for the gold medal. Though Don is gravely ill, even the idea of Don’s absence lends a sense of incompleteness and disconnection to the boat that cannot be resolved with a replacement. When Ulbrickson decides that Don is too ill to row:

Bobby Moch piped up. Nobody else but [Don] could look him in the eye and know what he was thinking even as he was thinking it […] He just had to have [Don] sitting in front of him. Then Joe stepped forward: “If you put him in the boat, Coach, we will pull him across the line. Just strap him in. He can just go along for the ride” (335).

After their Olympic gold-medal victory, the team remained close and got together annually. Every 10 years, they rowed together to commemorate their against-all-odds success. Their last reunion row took place in 1986, 50 years after the 1936 Olympics. The teammates then began to mourn the deaths of each other. Roger, the first friend whom Joe met when he started rowing, was the last of his remaining teammates when Joe died in 2007: “[I]n their last few years, Joe and Roger would often get together—in person or on the phone—and do nothing at all, hardly speaking, just sitting quietly, needing only to be in each other’s company” (367).