The Theme Of The Foghorn

Love is one of the strongest emotions known to nearly every person, add the factor of loss and losing love into the equation and the product is an emotion pool nearly reaching capacity. The themes of love and loss can be detected throughout “The foghorn” and broaden the understanding on how the reader can connect to the story. Love, loss, and how they fit together is essential to analyze while looking into this story. The obvious subject of love in this story is the dinosaurs love for the lighthouse. A quote best fit to show this is “‘That’s life for you,” said McDunn. ‘Someone always waiting for someone who never comes home. Always someone loving something more than that thing loves them” (Bradbury 4.) McDunn explains that the monster loves
society is present throughout the story and it a crucial element to consider when determining how these characters and society clash together using the monster, McDunn, and misanthropy to get the idea across. The monster affected in a monster vs. society way and an example follows explained by McDunn. “Anyway, here come men on land and build this lighthouse, five years ago. And set up their Fog Horn and sound it and sound it out towards the place where you bury yourself in sleep and sea memories of a world here there were thousands like yourself, but now you’re alone in a world that’s not made for you, a world where you have to hide.” (Bradbury 4) The monster completely has no place in society seeing as it is all alone and its world has completely changed, where there is no one else of his kind. Then the foghorn comes along and disrupts its slumber, bringing back the memories of when it had its place in this world. Again, McDunn’s inquiry has determined this. Aside from Monster’s being displaced, a human in this story also does not feel connected to society. McDunn is the most prominent character in this story and faces man vs. society concerns. Examples of this are when he says “No, this is something else. I’ve put off telling you because you might think I’m daft” (Bradbury 2) and “’It fell apart, is all,’ said McDunn gravely. ‘We had a few bad knocks from the waves and it just crumbled.’ He pinched my arm.” (Bradbury 6) McDunn shows apprehensiveness towards telling anyone about the dinosaur, because he knows society wouldn’t accept it. In return, he keeps it all to himself. He finally confides in Johnny, partly because he has no choice, and already knows he sounds foolish to the simple mind. After the lighthouse is destroyed, he pinches Johnny’s arm so that he will not call McDunn out for his lie about how it crumbled. McDunn has no faith in telling the truth to his fellow people, hence the link to man vs. society, but another cause of