Surfacing Chapter 6 Summary

  • The narrator is reflecting that she's now fulfilled her duties by doing what she could to find her dad. They will leave the next day.
  • The others are occupying themselves; Anna is sunbathing at the dock and the boys are in canoes.
  • Meanwhile, the narrator is working. She is a commercial artist, and she's currently working on illustrations for a book of Quebec fairy tales. However, she's having some serious artist's block. We learn a bit more about how she got into that field.
  • As she tries to work (unsuccessfully), she thinks about her upbringing, particularly in terms of religion.
  • She also ends up thinking about Joe and her relationship with him.
  • Anna comes back in and asks what her father was doing out here at the cabin, all isolated and such. The narrator doesn't really have a great answer.
  • She reflects on how her life was divided when she lived out there; apparently, they went between the "company town" and the cabin.
  • Also, there's this stack of papers up on a shelf that she saw when she arrived. Initially she hadn't wanted to go through it, but now that she had (apparently) decided her father was dead, she decides to peek.
  • The papers aren't what she would have expected—they're drawings of weird creatures. This discovery makes her reconsider the "dead" theory. Perhaps, she thinks, her dad just went insane.
  • Anna then asks what's for dinner, as the others arrive back inside.