Duck

Duck is present in the novel not as an animal shown acting in a scene, but through two forms of human attention: a jailed narrator’s memory of its sound and bill, and a song Ona Friesen sings to a child. Together, these references make Duck a small but recurring point of contact between private consolation and care for others.

Remembered Consolation

In Wandsworth Prison, the narrator recalls telling cellmates that the sound of a duck—and the sight of its round, flat bill—made him happy and consoled him. He describes the disclosure as a mistake: after it, he learned to keep most of his thoughts to himself. Duck therefore enters the account through an intimate preference that the narrator becomes reluctant to share. The episode does not establish that a duck is physically present in the prison; its importance lies in the memory and in the vulnerability attached to revealing it.

A Song for Miep

Later, Ona Friesen lifts Miep from the straw and sings a song about ducks. The narration briefly wonders whether Ona remembers how much comfort the sound of ducks gives the narrator, without resolving whether she does. In the song, ducks swim in the sea as Ona varies its pace: the lyrics quicken with the fish’s movement and slow as they bask near the surface. The reference to Duck thus moves from the narrator’s private sensory memory into a scene of shared attention, where song helps settle and hold the children’s interest.

Imagination and Attention

After singing, Ona asks the children whether they know what a sea is. She describes it as another, hidden world, defining it through the life beneath the water rather than water alone. Mariche counters that the children cannot be expected to understand what cannot be seen and points out that Ona has never seen a sea; Salome objects that underwater life is not inherently invisible, only out of sight from where they are. The duck song precedes this disagreement, placing a creature within Ona’s imaginative way of teaching: it helps open a path from familiar images to a world the children have not seen. Duck’s significance remains modest and indirect, carried by remembered comfort, song, and the possibility of imagining beyond immediate view.