Pincher Martin

If the “centre” represents Martin’s ego, then the lobster claws represent his id, the part of the personality that, according to Freud, is the source of emotional, sexual, and physical impulses and desires. Martin’s Navy nickname, “Pincher,” conjures the same claw-like symbolism. Although the nickname applies to all British sailors named Martin, Pincher is particularly fitting for Christopher Hadley Martin, whose appetites consume him. The connection between Martin and lobsters becomes more explicit when he calls a lobster a“[f]ilthy sea-beast” (98), echoing what Mary called Martin before he raped her.

Like the lobster claws, teeth and teeth-shaped objects symbolize Martin’s ravenous appetites. He likens the smaller rocks near the rock’s waterline to teeth. Looking down at them, he thinks to himself, “They were the grinders of old age, worn away. A lifetime of the world had blunted them, was reducing them as they ground what food rocks eat” (65). This evocative image troubles Martin, who cannot acknowledge that death is bringing an end to his ability to use his own teeth to eat and kill, in which he takes great pride. In her Afterword, Philippa Gregory says that the resemblance between the rocks and teeth signifies that Martin’s “egoism is such that when he is trying to imagine his survival, he imagines his own body; his illusions are random facts that he can remember” (194).

Seagulls are another presence that, as figments of Martin’s imagination, reflect his fracturing psyche. Although they’re mere animals, Martin imbues them with hatred toward humanity—specifically toward himself. He muses, “They were not like the man-wary gulls of inhabited beaches and cliffs. [...] They were wartime gulls who, finding a single man with water round him, resented the warmth of his flesh and his slow, unwarranted movements” (45). This relates to Martin’s broader efforts to frame the rock—and the challenges it poses to his survival—as an adversary and thereby feed the psychological incentive to conquer it.