Character Analysis
You'd think that English professor Jim Byron would have picked up a couple of tips from the likes of Atticus Finch, William from Danny, Champion of the World, or even The Man from The Road—you know, fathers who stay awesome even after they become widowers.
But Jim isn't one of those heroic dads who somehow hold everything together during a tragedy. He's selfish and flawed—or, maybe, let's just say he's not good at grief.
After his wife dies, Jim really checks out of his responsibilities as a father. He's not there for his sons, and Ben has to pick up a lot of the slack—especially with Gerry, the youngest:
"Dad," [Ben] said. "Gerry's calling."
"What?"
"Gerry's calling Mom—again."
"Mom!" Gerry's voice was going hysterical. Dad looked toward the stairs then pressed the apron to his face again. (6.24-6.28)
Of course, in the end, Ben ends up going to comfort Gerry while his dad, uh, sniffs the apron. (Dang, that sounds weird.)
Does that make him a bad dad? Not necessarily. He's going through a difficult time. But it's worth noting that, even before his wife's death, Jim wasn't exactly father of the year. Ben tells more than one story that suggests Jim has always been a jerk, like the one where he tried to teach Gerry how to swim.
Gerry sank and cried, and Dad got mad. (7.50)
Yikes. Getting mad at a little kid for not knowing how to swim is definitely not cool…even if your son is named Nemo. (Hey—Marlin's another widowed dad whom Jim could stand to learn from.)
Captain Ahab
Also not cool? Deciding that your whole family is going to spend a year at sea without even consulting them first.
Very soon after his wife dies, Jim puts his house on the market and buys a boat. Worse, once he and his sons are on that boat, he's extremely controlling and irresponsible. He's constantly issuing orders, and he doesn't put safety first; for instance, the boat's radio is always on the fritz (a fact that will haunt his sons after they're shipwrecked).
He's like Ahab, except there's no white whale. He just wants to sail away from his problems forever, basically.
After he injures his hand, Jim loosens up a little and starts talking with his sons instead of just issuing orders. Resisting the urge to pick up and move on whenever the urge strikes, he now takes the time to talk things over with his crew.
"We're running low on water and food. We've been here three weeks. It's time to go, don't you think?" (16.14)
Sounds reasonable enough…until he disappears in the night.
International Man of Mystery
And we're talking without a trace. He returns in the last pages of the book with a strange story about going overboard in the middle of the night.
So what's up with this guy? The thing we have to remember about Jim Byron, angry lunatic, is that we're seeing him through Ben's eyes. Something we learn about at the end of the book at least partially discredits Ben's opinion: he blames his father for his mother's death. We readers, like Ben's dad, can see all the ways in which that's deeply unfair. After all, Ben's mom was killed by some guy who ran a red light.
The question, then, is this: is there other stuff about his father that Ben's grief has distorted?
"I am not crazy," Jim tells Ben at one point (19.76). "I am a very lonely man—who wants his wife back" (19.78). What do you think—to what degree is Ben misinterpreting his father's words and actions?
Could Ben's misplaced anger have led him to believe that his father tried to commit suicide? The book never really answers that question. Jim insists that falling off the boat was an accident, but his story sounds at least a little fishy. He had unhooked his safety harness for a safety check in the middle of the night—an action that doesn't make much sense.
Our best guess? What really happened wasn't quite a conscious suicide attempt, but it wasn't an honest accident, either. It was something in between.
Jim's Timeline