ABSTRACT
Shells, husks, and even bark belonged together, and together they expose what the human body lacks—a hard, outside covering or, in the case of shellfish or snail, a portable dwelling. William Shakespeare's wordplay with shells was made more effective, and perhaps jarring, since the literal objects joined the crowd of life occupying the theater as both playhouse refreshments and recycled building material. In The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard dismisses the possibility that the shell is a social space since multiple inhabitants defeat the dreamer's original aim of tranquility and solitude. Shellfish were composite creatures that had mastered the capacity to live in and navigate the deep; when humans sailed in ships, they could only mirror what nature perfected on a different scale. For a man who habitually seeks protective shells it is especially fitting that his wife's death at sea conforms to this practice.
