What Is The Theme Of The Water Was Dark By Tim Winton
This story is important in teaching us about the importance of identity and what it’s like to not belong. This short story written by Tim Winton, “the water was dark” explores the feeling of loneliness within one’s self and how your family life is your biggest influence by default. We see a young girl struggling with her home life, needing a way to escape the negative tension between her and her mother, resorting to swimming. While reading this story, we identify the search for identity is a process and a journey.
Separation from parents' behaviours and attitudes and the use of alcohol, is a step in a good direction. Suffering from an unstable household, the girl in ‘the water was dark’ uses the skill of separation and detachment against her mother to move forward in a healthy manner. “Because she waited, her scars were hideous” was the result of her mother being drunk and depressed while also smoking. For the girl, this sparks the
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‘The water was dark’ concludes a young girl how’s love for swimming helps her escape her incapable, depressive mother. “Maybe that’s why I started swimming, she thought, to stop her from drowning me” is the thought process the young girl has. The meaning behind this is that instead of drowning by her mothers comments and habits, she found another world through swimming to have somewhere to go when she found herself slipping away. When she realises that “she didn’t love it (swimming) the way the others did, she knew she couldn’t be without it,” we figure that the reason she couldn’t be without it is because of how she uses swimming as an escape goat from life. She loves swimming for a different reason for others; others do swimming because they love the sport and to stay fit, she swims for the way it makes you feel and the fact that when you swim, you only think about your style, breathing and technique, you don’t have room to think of anything
Summary Of The Glass Castle By Jeannette Wall
441 Words | 2 PagesNear the beginning of Jeannette Wall’s memoir The Glass Castle, she recalls how she was taught to swim. Her family already struggled with money, moving around constantly, and she had grown to be independent. As she learns to swim, her father employs a concerning strategy: letting her sink and nearly drown before saving her for just a moment, then throwing her back into the water. Jeannette eventually catches on, realizing it’s more harmful to let him save her: “And so, rather than reaching for Dad’s hands, I tried to get away from them…and finally, I was able to propel myself beyond his grasp.”
Identity In The Novel 'By The River' By Steven Herrick
911 Words | 4 PagesSteven Herrick gives us a brief understanding of identity in his verse novel ‘by the river’. The main themes that I will be discussing are – grief, relationships, and coming of age. Identity is formed through many ways; however, it is sorted into two categories – getting born into and adopting. Our identity that we get born into are sex, race, and family but identity that we adopt are our attitude, beliefs, and actions. Herrick shows the use of identity in the narrative verse ‘by the river’, by making a story about a young man named Harry, and Harry’s journey through his teenage years, and occasional flashbacks from Harrys younger self experiences.
Similarities Between Looking For Alibrandi And Planet P
954 Words | 4 PagesFrequently, overcoming obstacles will enable people to grow but at other times have a pessimistic aftermath. Two texts that explore the concept of searching for identity are Melina Marchetta’s novel Looking for Alibrandi and Jessica Kean’s poem ‘Planet P’. In both texts the adolescent protagonist develops the relationship with others, through which the challenging events occur
The Color Of Water Identity Analysis
512 Words | 3 PagesImagine what it is like to not know your identity. Many people have questioned themselves about their identity. Searching for your identity is one of the struggles in life. In order to figure out your identity, start with the past. A memoir called The Color of Water by James Mcbride, talks about two main characters names Ruth and James Mcbride who have a lot in common when it come to their identity.
The Water Was Dark And Went Forever Down By Tim Winton
846 Words | 4 PagesAddiction 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.
Figurative Language In Lynne Cox's Swimming To Antarctica
591 Words | 3 PagesThis is just one of many illustrations in which similes are used to create tone in the autobiography Swimming to Antarctica. In short, Swimming to Antarctica is an autobiography by Lynne Cox about her swimming adventures in various locations internationally. As explained previously, personification is used to relay the central theme which is, anything can be accomplished with perseverance. Coupled with personification, similes are used to create tone in the novel and translate Lynne’s feelings and the atmosphere during certain swims.
Wade In The Water By Tracy K. Smith
1041 Words | 5 PagesWade in the Water by Tracy K. Smith is a collection of poems that cover a wide variety of interconnected concepts. The fourth part of this collection focuses on personal identity. In the poem “The Everlasting Self”, the author describes personal identity with two short but meaningful sentences that together display the resilience of the self in the face of adversity. The author uses purposeful diction, signifying syntax, and elaborate similes to reveal a definition of the everlasting self, which provides a clear representation of the collective experience of shaping personal identity. Since “The Everlasting Self” is noticeably short, the words within the poem have a lot of meaning and every word choice the author made is intentional.
Vacation In Juan Forn's Swimming At Night
1463 Words | 6 PagesHe had not seen his father since his death. And, at that moment, he had the strange realization that he had become used to the idea of never seeing him again. In “Swimming at Night” by Juan Forn, the readers are first introduced to a scene of a troubled man on vacation, who is unable
The Lovely Bones And The Almost Moon By Alice Sebold
1423 Words | 6 PagesHer parents weren’t very good role models to her and her older sister, as her mother had suffered from panic attacks and had a secret drinking problem. Her family was
Enrique's Journey Essay
876 Words | 4 PagesIn this book specifically, the separation of children from their mothers. From the moment their mothers say goodbye, children consider their mothers to be, “larger than life,” (7). In their mothers’ absence, children long for their care and support. This highlights the importance of a mother’s role in a child’s life. Even in more developed countries, some children suffer psychologically while growing up due to the absence of a mother-figure, or any other parental figure.
Book Report On The Glass Castle By Jeanette Walls
773 Words | 4 PagesAs she grew up in this cycle of moving to new places in order to evade trouble, she began to view her parents in a less positive light. Rather than be proud of her father’s ingenuity, she became somewhat angered at his foolish spending habits. While she still viewed life as pleasant most of the time, she especially hated the time when her father came home drunk, fearing his violent
Rhetorical Devices In The Glass Castle
1574 Words | 7 Pages“If you don 't want to sink, you better figure out how to swim” (41). Although Rex Walls was not always an admirable father and role model, he did make an essential point while teaching his daughter, Jeannette, how to swim. In life, not everything comes without resistance. As Jeannette Walls describes throughout her life story, sometimes people are forced to face hardships that make them question their whole life. However, as seen in her book, it is important to learn to take those hardships and use them to shape one’s future for the better.
Identity In Ernest Buckler's The Locket
1724 Words | 7 PagesThroughout literature the constant theme of identity has been explored, with Northrop Frye even suggesting “the story of the loss and regaining of identity is, I think, the framework for all literature.” For characters, true identity isn’t always apparent, it needs to be searched for. Sometimes the inner struggle for identity stems from ones need for belonging. Whether one finds their sense of identity within friends, family, or in a physical “home”. It’s not always a place that defines identity.
The Color Of Water Identity Analysis
402 Words | 2 PagesMost people eventually find a group were comfortable with. For others however, this is not the case. Through the process of finding this group is when we discover our identity. Throughout the Color of Water, James McBride shows us that one views his/her identity through responses from others and also through our own thoughts, actions and emotions.
Descriptive Essay About Fear Of Water
782 Words | 4 PagesI had a fear of water since I was a child, but somehow managed to take a risk and dive. You know the feeling of being underwater? The bone-crushing pressure of gallons of water envelops every inch of your body and sinks into your lungs, your brain, your heart. While you remain remarkably void of feeling, the fullness of defeat dominates your mind until all that is left inside you are the remnants of the sea’s terrors. Underwater, there are no sounds from the outside world - no cries from those you have wronged, no professions of love hidden inside for too long, no vicious words flung ruthlessly at your feet from the glares of passing strangers.
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