The Office of Historical Corrections

Water is a recurring motif throughout The Office of Historical Corrections. In some forms like the ocean’s vastness or powerful storms, water represents danger or the unknown. In “Alcatraz,” Cecilia rents an apartment directly overlooking the Pacific Ocean and Alcatraz prison, where her great-grandfather was wrongfully imprisoned. The prison island’s isolation on the ocean reflects the isolating nature of grief and obsession as both Papa and Anne devote their lives to his acquittal over all other pursuits. Water thus conveys the idea of Running from Versus Reckoning with the Past as Cecilia journeys out on the water with her mother for the first time, deciding to confront their past and appropriately grapple with what happened to Papa.

Similarly, in “The Office of Historical Corrections,” the storm at the text’s conclusion foreshadows impending danger. As Cassie obsessively watches videos from the Free Americans, it rains outside, and she begins to grow unsure of Genevieve’s decision to confront Chase. In “Happily Ever After,” Lyssa wonders how Ariel could give up “the whole ocean for one man” (1) in The Little Mermaid, even though she has never even seen the ocean. At her job, however, she becomes surrounded by the ocean, first in the Titanic replica and then in the pop star’s music video, which incorporates sea monsters and life under the ocean.