One-eyed seagull

*"I seen ye sparrin' with a gull. Best y'leave 'em be. Bad luck to kill a sea bird."
"More tall tales?"
"Bad luck to kill a sea bird!"*
―Thomas Wake and Thomas Howard[src]
A **one-eyed seagull** harasses Thomas Howard during his tenure at the lighthouse.

## Biography

### Harassing Thomas Howard

*"Say, why's it bad luck to kill a gull?"
"In 'em's the souls o' sailors what met their maker."*
―Thomas Howard and Thomas Wake[src]

The seagull first encounters Thomas Howard when it stands outside the fog signal house. He arrives pushing a wheelbarrow full of coal. It squawks at him and he attempts to scare it away, but it does not move. He picks up a lump of coal and throws it at the bird, which causes it to fly away.

Later that night, the seagull lands outside the window beside Howard's bed. It taps the window with its beak and flies away once it catches his attention.

Several days later, the seagull finds Howard lying unconscious at the foot of the lighthouse. It perches on his leg and pecks at it once he wakes up. He attempts to shoo it away, but it pecks him more aggressively. It finally flies away when he kicks at it.

The seagull later lands on the cistern, where Howard stands, having found another seagull dying within. The seagull attacks Howard, who grabs it by the neck and begins smashing it against the cistern. He continues until the seagull is dead.

### Post-Mortem

*"Boo! Boo! What're y'to do? Look at ye. Look at ye. Will y'kill me? Will ye? Will y'kill me like y'done that gull?"
"I didn't–-"
"LIAR! YE MURDERING DOG! TWAS YE WHAT CHANGED THE WIND ON US!"
"Damn you!"
"'TWAS YE WHAT DAMNED US, DOG! 'TWAS YE! Will y'do what y'wish y'done to ol' Winslow?"*
―Thomas Wake and Thomas Howard[src]

Once Howard kills the seagull, a flock of other seagulls cry out above. The wind quickly begins to change and a storm later envelopes the island. The tender intended to take Howard and his supervisor, Thomas Wake, never arrives and leaves them stranded on the island.

Wake later accuses Howard of bringing the storm upon them by killing the seagull, which Howard denies having done. Howard kills Wake, takes his keys and enters the top room of the lighthouse. He stares into the light and is driven mad by what he sees, which causes him to fall all the way down the stairs. He later lies naked on the rocks, his body broken, while several seagulls defecate on him and peck at his exposed organs.

## Trivia

* Wake tells Howard that it is bad luck to kill a sea bird as they are vessels for the souls of dead sailors. Howard later finds the severed head of Wake's previous assistant in the lobster trap and he is missing his right eye, which suggests that the one-eyed seagull contains his soul.
* The plot point of Howard bringing a curse upon himself and Wake by killing the seagull is similar to *The Rime of the Ancient Mariner*, a poem written in the eighteenth century by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In the poem, a mariner brings grave misfortune upon himself and his crew by killing an albatross.

## Behind the Scenes

* The one-eyed seagull was portrayed by three seagulls named Lady, Tramp and Johnny and was also brought to life by a puppet operated by Jeff Cruts.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Eggers, Robert; Eggers, Max, *The Lighthouse*, A24, USA, May 19, 2019
2. ↑ The Lighthouse Seagull True Meaning Teased by Director (collider.com)