Introduction A Pulitzer-prize winning novel The Shipping News, written by E. Annie Proulx is a story of a young but dispossessed newspaper reporter, who is constantly searching for his lost self. The affection and sympathy for a flawed human being makes Proulx’s novel distinctly different from the prevailing majority of contemporary works. Trapped within the gendered reality of his life, this disenfranchised and dispossessed personality resembles a figure of Don Quixote, as he is fighting against wind mills: his efforts are all in vain until death comes into his life. In Proulx’s novel, death exhibits a profound symbolic meaning. It is equally astonishing and fascinating. It puts an end to someone’s moral tortures and, simultaneously, paves the way to someone else’s successes and achievements. For Quoyle, death is just the beginning of a difficult fight for his own self. In E. Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News, death exemplifies an act of moral capitulation and subsequent revival, equally painful and inevitable, which is leading Quoyle through the moral and spiritual salvation to love. E. Annie Proulx is one of the most outstanding writers of our times. Her works are equally unusual and fascinating. Her characters uncover their talents and values through re-articulation and re-birth. The Shipping News is no exception: a Pulitzer-prize winning book, The Shipping News presents a dramatic story of a disenfranchised man looking for his self. Quoyle, the protagonist of Proulx’s novel is trapped within the gendered reality of his tragic being. Constantly torn between his unfaithful wife, sick parents, and work and, as a result, disentangled, Quoyle is just a fragment of the surrounding reality, with no sense of selfhood (Flavin 240). In her book, Proulx observes how Quoyle is fighting against the realities of life. In The Shipping News, death comes as a form of salvation. It gives him Quoyle a second chance to win the game of life. Quoyle, his wife Petal, and his parents are the major players of the death game. Quoyle’s life is a sequence of failures, which no one can break. “From this youngest son’s failure to dog-paddle the father saw other failures multiply like an explosion of virulent cells – failure to speak clearly; failure to sit up straight; failure to get up in the morning; failure in attitude; failure in ambition and ability; indeed, in everything. His own failure.” (2) This tragic picture of never ending failures is further supplemented with the image of Petal Bear, Quoyle’s wife, whose sexual desire for Quoyle turns into detestation once they are married (Proulx 13). Quoyle brings his children around, while his wife is searching for sexual adventures (Proulx 14). Petal travels in the U.S. and pretends not to recognize her children when she comes back home (Proulx 15). A life full of torture – this is how readers see Quoyle, his life and his family. Yet, even then Quoyle does have a chance to cope with all his troubles, if not for his parents. “First the father, diagnosed with liver cancer, a blush of wild cells diffusing. A month later a tumor fastened in the mother’ brain like a burr” (Proulx 17). Readers do not realize that the gruesome picture of Quoyle’s life is just a preparation stage of his journey to salvation.