Addiction to substances such as alcohol often leads to depressive mental states and the destruction of any sound relationships. ‘The water was dark and went forever down’ is a 1987 short story written by time Winton which explores the journey of a young Australian girl with a mentally ill mother. A 14-year-old Australian girl who is referred to as ‘the girl’ has traveled to a beachside cottage on holiday with her mentally ill mother. The girl is forced to be independent as her mother’s addiction to alcohol has disabled her from properly caring for her daughter. The girl seeks refuge in swimming which lets her avoid the mental battles posed by her home life. Tim Winton, a famed Western Australian writer uses the mother figure to symbolize the …show more content…
He does this by creating a sense of sympathy for the mother’s mental illness and her actions, whilst allowing the audience to understand how her actions have negatively affected the girl. The audience gathers a developed understanding of how the detrimental state of the mother has affected the girl when she describes her as ‘sick, and bitter, and afraid’, from the use of sharp single-word descriptions it is obvious that the girl is fed up and isn’t scared to tell the truth about her mother’s issues. This independence shown by the girl elicits a sympathetic feeling for her mother and her apparent mental illness. At the end of the first page, Winton depicts a scene of havoc with the mother severely burning herself after a smoking accident, the aftermath of her mother’s accident is described by the girl as like a ‘charred side of beef’, whilst this symbolises how the mothers' actions have resulted in her relationship with her daughter being ‘charred’ or burnt, it also describes the sense of olfaction as it is easy for the audience to understand how charred beef smells, emphasizing a burnt, fierce aroma which connotates a feeling of shame and wastefulness. Throughout the novel, it is implied that the mother is incapable and a waste of space, Winton provides sympathetic perspectives for the mother whilst solidifying that her alcohol addiction has led her to this