Deep Water by William Douglas

Deep Water by William Douglas

 

 

INTRODUCTION

‘Deep water’ is an excerpt taken from the book ‘of men and mountains’, an informal autobiography written by William Douglas who is a U.S. Supreme Court associate justice. This chapter reveals how as a young boy William Douglas nearly drowned in a swimming pool. Here our childhood experiences play a vital role in formation of our personality and how these experiences remain with us throughout our life having a positive or negative impact on us.

SUMMARY

 

Deep water shows how scared of water Douglas had been as a boy. His very first experience was when he first went to the sea beach with his father and a powerful wave swept over him. Although the wave had receded still it left him terrified .But then to overcome his fear he made up his mind to learn swimming. He went to the Y.M.C.A. pool which was two feet at the shallow end and nine feet at the deep end.

One day a strong big boy picked him up and threw him into the deepest part of the pool. He sank to the bottom but he tried to jump and come up gradually. As fear had gripped him all his efforts went in vain. He was nearly drowned .He tried to breathe but swallowed water. He lay there in complete peace without sensation or fear of death. But someone saved him.

He was so terrified that the sight of water made him sick. He could not go fishing or canoeing. So to overcome his fear he found an instructor who trained him as a swimmer bit by bit. He was able to overcome his fear completely. This experience of fear at first and then conquering it made his life worth living.

Justification of Title

This memoir is appropriately entitled “Deep Water” as in it the author recounts his fear of swimming following an incident in which he had been swept away by a wave. Another incident which further aggravated his fear was when a bully pushed him into the deep side of a swimming pool and he nearly drowned. But slowly and steadily he overcome his fear through determination and string will. He even took the services of an instructor. He also swam in different rivers, lakes and seas to overcome his fear. The title also signifies that the author’s fear was a deep rooted. In short, the title is appropriate.

QUICK REVISION NOTES

The author William Douglas talks about his fear of water and how he finally overcomes it. He narrates an autobiographical incident that occurred when he was ten or eleven years old and almost drowned in the Y.M.C.A swimming pool. In result he developed a fear of water, which he was able to conquer after several years because of sheer determination. The lesson conveys the message that is not death but fear of death that creates terror and anxiety in our mind so the fear needs to be shaken off.

Notes

v A childhood Longing

·        Douglas plans to learn swimming.

·        Y.M. C.A. Pool chosen as safe as Yakima.

·        River had claimed many lives (Treacherous)

v Preparation to start swimming

·        Gets a pair of water wings

·        Ashamed of exposing skinny legs

·        Decides to learn by imitating others.

v Fear off water

·        The result of childhood fear

·        Father took it lightly but Douglas became terrified

·        Again Y.M.C. A port revived unpleasant memories

·        Again strike with fear e Misadventure in pool

v One day sitting alone at the pool waiting for others.

·        Soon eighteen year old boy arrive.

·        Calls him skinny hurls him into deep side of water

·        Douglas falls in to water in a sitting position.

v Douglus plan to come out of water

·        Goes to the bottom of pool

·        Is frightened but alert

·        Plans to push himself upward on touching the bottom

·        Next to lie flat and reach at the edge of the pool

·        Nine feet appear like ninety feet

·        Lungs ready to burst

·        Douglas hits the bottom with whole strength

·        Reaches to surface but again starts going down

·        Tries to clutch a rope, to find stairs_

·        Nothing but water runs through fingers

·        Feels suffocated

·        Water swallowed

·        Legs stiff like life less objects

v Effort in vain

·        A futile struggle

·        Dizziness with aching lungs and throbbing head

·        Acute physical discomfort

·        Unable even to scream

·        Still does not give up

·        Comes out of water-but starts going down for the third time

·        Douglas now gives up all efforts

·        Total relaxation

·        Passes into oblivion

v Consciousness regained

·        Find himself out of the pool vomiting

·        The matured boy makes excuse

·        Hours later weak and trembling reaches home.

·        Develops phobia of water

·        Avoid going close to water bodies.

v Longing of swimming Revived again

·        Fear of childhood followed him

·        Fear deprive him from swimming, fishing, canoeing boating

·        Determined to finally defeat fear

·        Engaged an instructor

·        A rope attached to belt put around him

·        Rope went through pulley

·        Practiced for weeks together

v Overcome fear

·        Learnt exhaling, inhaling while swimming

·         Initially legs were stiff- but gradually relaxed

·        Finally given clean chit by instructor

·        Again tried swimming alone in pool

·        All fear shed off

v Winner Douglas got a new experience.

·        Went to warm lake

·        Dived and swam across the lake

·        Fear of water won

·        Realise- death is full of peace

·        Fear of death terrorises

VALUE BASED QUESTIONS

5 Marks                                                                                            100 Words

Deep Water

Q. Doing well in any activity, for example a sport, music, dance or painting, riding a motorcycle or a cars, involves a great deal of struggle. Most of us are very nervous to begin with until gradually we overcome our fears and perform well.

Write a paragraph of about 100 words recounting such an experience. Try to recollect details of what caused the fear, your feelings, the encouragement you got from others or the criticism.

You could begin with the last sentenced of the essay DEEP WATER – “ At last I felt released, free to walk the trails and climb the peaks and to brush aside fear.”

Ans.               Doing Well- A Great Struggle

At last I felt released, free to walk the trails and climb the peaks and to brush aside fear. Now the haunting fear had been shed and I can drive not only the motorcycle but the car also on the crowded roads of Delhi without any trace of fear in me.

When for the first time I rode a motorcycle I felt very thrilled. Moreover, I drove on an empty road in the rural part after sunset. It was after travelling a distance of four kilometers I drove back. At a sharp curve a passenger bus came from opposite side. To my utter horror, I could notice the fallen-tree on my road-side when I just reached it. It had no choice but to drive down the road. I jumped flat behind, leaving the running motorcycle in the grove of trees. I was badly hurt and found the bike damaged form standing in the trees. I was fear-struck and helpless. The driving fear followed me whenever I drove.

At last, I engaged an instructor to teach me driving. It was one hour daily for one month. I was given a signal to drive independently. I drove on busy roads, crowded roads, jammed roads and finally, on roads with deep curves in the hills. It made me to feel free of the haunting driving fear. The residual fear also was over a long time. I won it, and felt free to drive.

Q. Taking references from the story ’Deep Water’, write a paragraph on ‘Practice Makes a Man Perfect’.

Ans. Life teaches us many things. We are not well trained or learned person since our birth. Life provides us opportunities to learn. We break the shackles of myths and prejudices to learn more and more. Due to one incident or other, many phobias start ruling one’s heart. This is really a pathetic condition. Terrors and fears are a part of life but their phase must be temporary. One needs to practice over and over again till he gets mastery over the issue. This is all about hope, struggle and determination and nothing else. As it is rightly said, ‘Faith can move mountains.’ So practicing hard for a thing brings fruitful results.

Q.  Look at the following quotes:

Life is to live

Faith steers the ship of life

Life is  a teacher itself

Life is a mixture of Roses & Thorns

Life is a precious gift

 

 

 Reading all these and the lesson ‘Deep Water’ you decide to write a paragraph for your school magazine on ‘How to overcome trouble’.

Ans.   How to Overcome Trouble

            Life is a mixture of the ‘Pleasant’ and the ‘Unpleasant’, of joy and sorrow. As the Psalmist declares – “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” Joy and sorrow follow each other as day follows night. But when suffering comes, the period appears to be long. A year of joy appears as a day and a day of suffering appears longer than a year.

Suffering is not a part of life. It is a teacher. We would miss some of the best lessons in life, if suffering did not come to us. Many of us don not recognize this truth and do all we can to avoid a painful experience. When trouble approaches, we try to run away from it, but trouble can never be avoided. The unpleasant experience recedes - only for a while to return to us again. By avoiding trouble, we invite grater trouble at a later stage. There are some who knowing that trouble cannot be avoided, resign themselves to the experiences which fall to their lot. They do not resist; they become resigned. Often such persons are heard to say: ‘What cannot be cured must be endured.’

Q. “All we have to fear is fear itself”, the narrator in the lesson ‘deep water ‘Quotes Roosevelt while narrating his experience of going deep in water and all the rest of it. Narrate another story about conquest of fear and how courage helped one to survive under the stress.

ANS:  ‘An Act of Courage’

It is the real story of Asma khan, who was awarded for saving about 40 children from drowning ‘.

It was a horror scene in suburban Mumbai, rain lashed on the ground. A hundred children wailed in terror in a cramped, dark hall. Water gushed in from all sides and inched up. The inmates of ‘bal girha’ of the children’s aid society sang and their prayer. Asma was the odd one out.

She started calculating how soon the children will start drowning. She instantly picked up two of the smaller kids and jumped into water-nearly five feet of dirty, black liquid! She didn’t know how to swim. So, slowly she moved across the slippery ground, keeping her head up to keep water from getting into her mouth and nose. She made over a dozen such trips, carry nearly 40 kids on her shoulders to safety. Wasn’t she scared? Someone asked her. “Nothing scares me “, she says. The girl doesn’t know who or where her parents were. But Asma certainly knows about parenting than most. At this tender age, she has already conquered fear!

Q. ‘All we have to fear is fear itself’. The story ‘Deep Water’ is about Douglas’ fear water and how he finally overcomes it.

After reading the text, you strongly feel that there is nothing to be afraid of. One can adapt virtues like courage, strong determination, hard toil, strong will power and the desire to learn, to reach the highest peak in life. Write a speech in about 1000 words to be delivered in the morning assembly of your school on the topic ‘Fear Does not let One Conquer’.

BOARD QUESTIONS

 

 

 

 

 

An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum

An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum

By Stephen Spender    

 

ABOUT THE POET

 

Spender was born in London in 1909. His parents were both literary people, his father being a journalist while his mother was a painter and a poet.

Theirs was middle class society and, typically for those days, they tended to despise the ways of the working class. His parents' attitude would naturally influence the poet as a young boy -- hence the theme of his poem "My parents kept me from children who were rough".  

 

The poet initially attended Oxford University but did not finish his degree. Indeed, he later boasted about the fact that he had never ever passed an exam in his whole life.  

While he was at Oxford, however, he fell under the influence of the poet W.H. Auden with whom he did some major collaboration. Later he would also pal up with both Louis MacNeice and Cecil Day-Lewis, as well has many other rising English poets.  

Instead of finishing his degree, Spender spent time in Germany where he studied some of the German poets.  

 Germany during the 1920s was a hotbed of socialism and Spender became caught up in this political movement -- becoming for a time an ardent admirer of communism itself.  

The world in which he lived, however, quickly came to be dominated by a struggle between fascism and communism, and Spender became involved in this clash of ideals. Indeed, he even launched himself into the Spanish Civil War where he sided with the socialist forces opposed the fascist dictator, General Franco.

Despite his lack of a degree, Spender's proven poetic track record allowed him to teach at various American universities. In 1965 he Was appointed "Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry" to the United States Library of Congress.  

 He would eventually return to England, however, where he took up a post as Professor of Rhetoric at Gresham College and, later, Professor of English at the University College in London.  

As early as 1962, Spender was awarded a C.B.E. and in 1983 he was honoured with a knighthood for his poetry. He died in 1995 at the age of 86.

 

     IN A NUTSHELL

In this poem, the poet has concentrated on themes such as social injustice and class inequalities.  In the first stanza, the poet describes the students in an elementary classroom of a school located in a slum. The students are all malnourished and poverty-stricken. Their hair hang around their pale, wan faces like rootless weeds, unkempt and dirty. There is a tall girl with her head weighed down due to weakness and misery. A very thin, undernourished boy watches with bulging, rat-like eyes. There is also a small boy, who has inherited a disease of twisted bones from his father. However, at the back of the class is a sweet, unnoticed boy, dreaming innocently of a squirrel’s game in a tree room, which shows that he is hopeful of a bright future.
The walls of the classroom are sour cream in colour and peppered by donations such as a poster of William Shakespeare, domed buildings in civilised cities, flowery Tyrolese valley, the world map, etc. But for these children in the slum, the pictures on the walls have no meaning. This is because their world is different from what is shown in the posters. Their futures are painted with fog, i.e., unclear and dull. Their world is just a narrow street with a lead sky (signifies sadness and misery). Their world is far from the rivers and capes in the posters

According to the poet, all the pictures and donations are a bad example to these students. The pictures of ships, sun and love tempt them to choose the wrong path and steal. For children in such a bad condition in the slums, their time and space are foggy, miserable slums. Therefore, the maps on their walls should be blotted with huge slums and false promises should not be made.
The windows, which show these students the scene of the slum outside, close upon their lives like catacombs. So, unless a governor, inspector or visitor feels pity on these students and encourages them, these children will be doomed. Instead of making false promises, these people need to give better educational opportunities to these children so that they may have a better future.

 An elementary school classroom in a slum was published by Stephen Spender in 1964. The poem resonates the poet’s political views and brings forth the difficulties faced by the kids in slums. This poem was written to highlight the social injustice prevailing at that time in the world. The following article summarizes his views and is divided stanza-wise for ease in understanding.

Stanza 1

The poet says that the condition of the children in a slum school is pathetic. Their world is far removed from the open, healthy environment. They are as unwanted as the rootless weeds. Their hair is unkempt and they have pale faces which clearly indicate their deprived and under-nourished condition. These children, as the tall girl, are stressed by the burden of their circumstances. They are exhausted both physically as well as emotionally. The paper thin boy is skinny. His eyes have a scared look. These unfortunate beings have inherited only disease and bad luck from their parents. One of diseased ones can’t even get up from the desk to recite his lesson. However, there is one child at the back of the class who is younger than the others. His inexperienced eyes are full of hope and he is dreaming about playing games in the open. Apparently gloom has still not enveloped him.

Stanza 2

The classroom walls have a dirty appearance as they haven’t been painted for a long time. In other words, these children inhabit a world which is dreary and depressing. On the walls are displayed the names of people who have given donations. The bust of Shakespeare with the background of a clear sky at the time of sun-rise is also displayed. The walls also have scenic pictures of Tyrolese Valley with its beautiful flowers presenting a world of the heavenly splendor. Apart from all this, the walls also have a map revealing the world which they view from the classroom’s windows which is foggy and harsh. It represents a dark and bleak future with no hope for amelioration. Their eyes can only view a narrow road which is enclosed with a dull sky. The poet suggests that these children are trapped in a hopeless situation and their reality is far removed from the literary world which glistens with the beauty of nature such as the rivers and the high land jutting from the sea.

 Stanza 3

The pensive poet suddenly turns belligerent (aggressive) and feels that Shakespeare is ‘wicked’. This is because he misleads the children. He shows them a beautiful world of ships, sun and love which is not only unreal for them but it has a corrupting influence on these children and instigates them to steal and try to escape from their cramped holes. Their existence is indeed, very sad. These emaciated children are so thin that it appears that they are ‘wearing’ skins. The spectacles they are wearing have glass which has been broken and mended. Their entire appearance reeks of their deprivation. The poet shows his outrage by suggesting that the maps on their walls should show huge slums instead of beautiful scenic graphics.

Stanza 4

In a conciliatory tone the poet appeals to the governor, inspector and visitor to do something to improve their condition. If there is political will this map showing the beautiful world outside can become their reality too. The poet hopes the authorities would realize their moral responsibilities and free these children from their grave-like entrapments. He wants all the barriers to be pulled down; barriers that keep away true education from them. The children must be given freedom to experience the wholesome bounties of nature-view the green fields and run on ‘gold sand’. Let them read books and let them breathe in fresh air. Let them discover themselves and let them be creative so that their names can also enter the books of history. Let them find their place in the sun.

QUESTIONS WITH ANSWERS

1.Where does the slum exist? How do you know this?

 The slum exists far away from the seas and oceans and rivers where rich    
 and  prosperous people live. Prosperity is found in cities and cities generally  
 stand on the coastal regionsof the world. As the slum is away from the gusty   
 waves of the seas, they are far awayfrom seas too.
 2.Why is the hair of the children here compared to rootless weeds?
  When weeds are rootless they are dead and decayed. Similarly the slum- 
  children   have their hair without being groomed or nourished properly. Their    
  hair tangle on  their faces without any order.

 3.Why is the tall girl’s head weighed down?

 There is possibly more than one reason for the tall girl’s head being weighed down. In the first place she, being big and responsible, is burdened by her own terrible life. Secondly, the girl, being tall, is ashamed of studying with small kids.

   4. The paper- seeming boy, with rat’s eyes.

       The stunted, unlucky heir of twisted bones,
       Reciting a father’s gnarled disease,
       his lesson, from his desk.

    a).What does the expression, paper seeming boy, suggest the        

       appearance of the boy?

         The boy is as thin as paper due to malnutrition and poor upbringing.

    b) Why are the boy’s eyes compared to that of a rat’s?

       A rat’s eyes are always restless. They are always in search of something   

      and look for dangers. The boy here is also searching for something other  
      than the attractions  inside the classroom.

    c)  How does the term, stunted, describe the unlucky boy’s        

         appearance?

       The boy’s growth was slowed by his poor conditions. Poverty and  

      malnutrition  have tortured his body and spirit. He looks like a living

      skeleton.

   d) Why is the boy unlucky?
     The boy has nothing at hand to be lucky. What he has inherited from his          
      father is a  cruel disease. Poverty is his companion. A skeleton-like figure   
       is what he is. Hunger gleams in his eyes and helplessness echoes in his  
       heart.
   e) What has the boy inherited from his father?
     The boy has inherited neither money nor great legacy nor property from his   
     father. He inherited his father’s gnarled disease.
    f) How does the unlucky boy ‘recite’ his father’s decease from his
    desk?
      The unlucky boy is suffering from the same gnarled disease that his father  
      too was  suffering  from. When asked to recite his lessons in the class, the  
      boy struggles to do so  due to his ailment/disease.
    g) What do you understand by ‘gnarled disease?’
      The possible ‘gnarled disease’ of the unlucky boy is either polio or uneven   
       growth of bones or even tuberculosis.
( To be contd)