Games Untold

Jackson Currie’s place at Rockaway Watch is the primary backdrop for the story “The Same Backward as Forward” and is symbolic of the safe haven of Hannah and Toby’s love. Hannah largely moves here after Jackson begs for her help nursing Tobias Hawthorne—alternately referred to as Toby and Harry—following the Hawthorne Island fire. Over time, the setting offers her and Toby the time, space, and opportunity to cultivate their romantic relationship on their own terms. While the area is defined as “an abandoned lighthouse and terrain so inhospitable that no person in their right mind would have tried to live there” (107), the setting grants Hannah and Toby a sense of comfort and stability. While there, they’re physically removed from the surrounding town and thus free to explore their relationship and identities without fear.

The nearby lighthouse is also a primary feature in “The Same Backward as Forward,” as Hannah and Toby start spending nights together there once their intimate relationship begins. The lighthouse was “built sometime in the eighteen hundreds and look[s] like it [has] been battered by saltwater and storm-force gales every day since” (107). Its structure is “faded and overgrown,” its “beacon [hasn’t] worked for decades,” and its “stone walls [are] literally crumbling” (107). However, these features of the lighthouse are romantic and endearing to the characters. The lighthouse itself is a symbol of safety, and though it isn’t functioning as a lighthouse anymore, it still offers safety, intimacy, and comfort to Hannah and Toby and feels “like something out of a fairy tale” to Hannah (107). The lighthouse also represents the “liminal space between here and there” (107), or between Hannah and Toby’s past lives and their romance in the present.