
He attempts to escape on the dory, but Wake destroys it with an ax.

Wake accuses Howard of "spilling his beans," and Howard tries to leave. One night, Winslow tells Wake that his real name is Thomas Howard and that he assumed the identity of Ephraim Winslow, Howard's old foreman who died in an accident Howard failed to stop. He has visions of a lobster trap containing the severed, half-blinded head of Wake's previous wickie. Winslow unsuccessfully tries to steal the key to the lantern room from a sleeping Wake. More nights progress, and the storm continues, and the two men grow closer while remaining adversarial. They dig up a crate said to contain extra rations, but it only contains more alcohol. He runs back into the cottage to find Wake stating that the rations were impacted by the storm. He approaches the naked body and realizes that it is a mermaid. The next morning, the ferry does not arrive, and Winslow sees a body washed up on the shore. That night, a storm hits the island, and the two men get drunk. That afternoon, the winds dramatically change direction. The one-eyed seagull flies down and attacks Winslow, who grabs it and beats it to death against the cistern. He checks the cistern to see a dying gull floating inside. The day before Winslow is slated to leave, he notices the water pump is releasing bloody water and investigates.

Throughout the time spent together between Ephraim and Thomas, they start to annoy each with their own antics which causes several arguments and small fights. Winslow begins experiencing visions and dreams of tentacles in the lighthouse, tree stumps floating in the water, and distant images of a beautiful mermaid. Winslow observes Wake going up to the lighthouse's lantern at night and stripping naked.

As he digs into it, he finds a small scrimshaw of a mermaid and stuffs it in his jacket. On the first day of the job, Winslow notices a hole in his cot.

Thomas Wake's backstory and early life isn't really touched on in the film though it is presumed that he was born in the early 19th century and it is also stated that he was once a sailor and even a captain of a ship before being a Lighthouse keeper though it's possibly a fabricated lie.Įphraim Winslow is sent on a boat to serve a contract job as a wickie for four weeks on an isolated island off the coast of New England, under the supervision of an elderly Thomas Wake. ~ Thomas Wake cursing Winslow for not liking his cooking, and his famous monologue.
#Lighthouse keeper quotes full#
Should pale death, with treble dread, make the ocean caves our bed, God who hears the surges roll deign to save our suppliant soul.ĭamn ye! Let Neptune strike ye dead Winslow! HAAAAAARK! Hark Triton, hark! Bellow, bid our father the Sea King rise from the depths full foul in his fury! Black waves teeming with salt foam to smother this young mouth with pungent slime, to choke ye, engorging your organs til' ye turn blue and bloated with bilge and brine and can scream no more - only when he, crowned in cockle shells with slitherin' tentacle tail and steaming beard take up his fell be-finned arm, his coral-tine trident screeches banshee-like in the tempest and plunges right through yer gullet, bursting ye - a bulging bladder no more, but a blasted bloody film now and nothing for the harpies and the souls of dead sailors to peck and claw and feed upon only to be lapped up and swallowed by the infinite waters of the Dread Emperor himself - forgotten to any man, to any time, forgotten to any god or devil, forgotten even to the sea, for any stuff for part of Winslow, even any scantling of your soul is Winslow no more, but is now itself the sea!
