Object
Imagined Rowboat (Father Cavanaugh parable, S1E14)
A small, imagined single‑occupant rowboat evoked in Father Thomas Cavanaugh's river parable: plain, wooden, and fitted with a pair of oars. The craft never appears physically; it exists as a concrete mental image characters latch onto when offered as a literal means of rescue and explicitly refused by the story's recipient.
2 appearances
Purpose
To serve as a simple rescue craft capable of carrying a drowning person to shore.
Significance
Functions as the pivotal illustrative object that converts a procedural crisis into a moral choice: the offered rowboat reframes attempts to find legal evasions as the refusal of straightforward aid, precipitating the protagonist's admission of responsibility and spiritual reckoning.
Appearances in the Narrative
When this object appears and how it's used