preview

Comparing Rheya And The Ocean

Decent Essays
Open Document

In Hawkins’s essay, she writes about how Kelvin planned to “establish a link between the ‘most powerful emotions--despair, grief and pleasure’--and the electrical discharges from the ocean” (Hawkins). The ocean’s electrical discharges are similar to the electrical charges from our brains that occur when we feel emotions. The ocean could sense those feelings, specifically, the strongly repressed ones. When an emotion is not released and is contained, it becomes repressed. The ocean made physical recreations of these emotions because it thought that was how it could communicate with the humans. The first time Kelvin meets him, Snow is drunk. This is a sign of repressed emotions. Each time he drinks, it is most likely to provide a brief moment …show more content…

He feels guilty because he knows that he is the reason that she killed herself back on Earth. The guilt he felt was always there, it was just repressed. Now, Rheya serves as a constant reminder of what he did. Unlike the original Rheya, this Rheya is unbelievably strong and intolerably dependent. Rheya is a metaphor for guilt. She represents how strongly it can affect someone and how it is continually there. He tries to send her away, but one can never really get rid of their guilt. Launching Rheya into space is only an inconvenience that delays her for a short time. He thinks he might love Rheya and promises to go back to Earth with her. However, this proclamation of love is just another repressed emotion. When you are suffering from repressed emotions, your actions are based off of your reactions to the past as well as the present. He remembers how he loved Rheya and he thinks that he can love this Rheya the same way. However, he cannot love this Rheya because he does not understand her. Rheya does not understand herself either. She cannot comprehend who or what she is, because she is a creation of the ocean. The ocean did not realize the affect emotions have and how Rheya’s love for Kelvin would drive her to suicide. She signs her suicide note as Rheya, but then she crosses it out. This is because the identity she has been given is Rheya, but she is only a copy. She is not the original, the ‘real’ Rheya. Her

Get Access