Gift From The Sea

For Lindbergh, civilization by its very nature creates distractions that lead one away from inner harmony and the true self. Yet while this issue concerns everyone, she says that “the problem is particularly and essentially woman’s” (34). There are several reasons for this. Women, specifically married mothers, are expected to perform a variety of roles. They are traditionally expected to be loving mothers, managers of the home, and attractive, attentive partners to their husbands. Women are also expected to be active members of the broader community, helping with charity work or the running of local clubs. Lindbergh helps convey this exhausting sense of busyness by using first-person narration. As she says, “I have a husband, five children and a home just beyond the suburbs of New York” (28). This allows readers to identify more intuitively with the plight she is describing.

Such a situation contrasts with the traditional male role, which is more focused, and with which the demands placed on women are often in tension. This problem is exacerbated by modern consumer society. As Lindbergh argues, the “modern house with its modern ‘simplifications’” (31), such as refrigerators, dishwashers, and radios, in fact makes life more complicated. Such devices require maintenance and replacement, and they free up time only to allow new demands to be placed on women. These devices are also linked to and facilitate a broader societal development. As Lindbergh states, “Life today in America is based on the premise of ever-widening circles of contact and communication” (32). Radios and cars, as well as other modern technologies like daily newspapers and airplanes, mean that people are more connected than ever. But more connections entail more distractions. Modern media as well means that the range of one's concerns and the distractions that accompany them can now be broadened to include people and issues in entirely different parts of the world.

Despite these challenges, Lindbergh does not advocate a complete retreat from the world. Whether in relation to widening connections or the traditional role of wife and mother, Lindbergh says that the answer for her “is neither in total renunciation of the world, nor in total acceptance of it” (36). She seeks, rather, to find “an alternating rhythm between these two extremes” (36). Lindbergh seeks to retreat temporarily from conventional life in order to be more aware and balanced when she returns to it. The same is true of her experiment with simple living. Her goal is not to proscribe a typical way of life nor to suggest that modern comforts have no value. Instead, her aim is to explore an alternative sense of possibility and value that she can carry back with her to more conventional life. In this way, the channelled whelk shell she takes back to her desk is a metaphor for the goal of her beach-living experiment. She is searching for something small to remind her of an alternative ideal and to help center her amid the challenges of ordinary living. Similarly, the shell shows how her personal narrative of leaving and then returning is possible. With her description of her time by the beach and her use of the personal confessional tone, Lindbergh suggests that simple living is not just an abstract ideal nor one that requires the jettisoning of all existing commitments. Rather, it is something realistic and attainable for many real women.