Can anyone please explain 1ac? "Bowling returns, providing dominant theme." The answer is clearly MOTIF. I can see IF for "providing", but am stumped re MOT as "bowling returns".
Perhaps more famously, except for the very well read, TB appear in a song, also known as A Sailor's Epitaph,
"Here a sheer hulk lies poor Tom Bowling,
The darling of our crew;
No more he'll hear the tempest howling,
For death has broach'd him to..."
which features in the Fantasia on British Sea Songs.