The Sea in Winter

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of mental illness, death, racism, and child abuse.

Maisie is the protagonist and first-person narrator of the story. She is a young Indigenous girl living in Seattle with her mother, stepfather, and brother. Maisie longs for a creative outlet and grew up dreaming of becoming a ballerina. However, after sustaining an ACL injury during class, she has to abandon her passion and contend with considerable emotional distress in the wake of this loss. At the start of the narrative, Maisie is tormented by feelings of frustration, guilt, and failure. She is reluctant to go to school and feels isolated in class. Dance was previously her main source of spiritual sustenance and meaning, and she used this passion to manage her emotions as well. Without the freedom to dance, she sees little meaning in her life, and her school grades are failing. The adult world feels frustrating and confusing, and she avoids conversations with her parents and lashes out in anger. Due to her turmoil, she cannot feel their love and believes that they do not understand her pain. As she focuses on her physical therapy and longs to return to dance school auditions in the summer, she ignores her mental trauma and avoids her pain, feeling hopeless and disconnected from her family and friends.