Monahan has a Ph.D. in English and operates an editing service, The Inkwell Works. In the following essay, she explores the central theme of how knowledge is obtained and how it is handled in “The Shell Collector.”

Anthony Doerr’s “The Shell Collector” explores how people learn about nature and what factors determine how they react to and interpret what they come to know. The story also suggests how print and broadcast news media change information by interpreting it in certain ways and shrinking it to fit their delivery formats, and how preexisting belief systems can impose meaning, too. The events of the story highlight the risks of living in a remote natural environment and how learning can occur through accidental injury. The story raises questions about the price involved in the acquisition of knowledge and who is responsible for its...