The ocean features in both the characters’ language and as a dominant force in their lives, imbued with symbolic meaning. In Egeon’s backstory, the ocean brings him trade and wealth, but also tears his family apart through the unpredictable power of a storm. It surrounds the port city of Ephesus where the action takes place, and offers a way in and out of the city: It dictates many of the characters’ actions, as they are dependent on ships if they want to leave, creating high stakes. The Second Merchant initiates the plotline surrounding Antipholus’s debt for the chain because he has to leave on a certain ship, while the ocean allows Antipholus of Syracuse to roam the world on his quest. In all of these examples, the ocean represents forces bigger than the characters, exemplifying freedom, opportunity, and escape, but also danger and confusion.

The characters also use the ocean as a metaphor, often relating to The Problem of Rifts in Interpersonal Relationships. They draw on its unpredictability and scale to articulate the nature of a rift and its significance to them. Antipholus of Syracuse uses the image of a drop in the ocean searching for another drop to describe the lost feeling he has searching for his brother.