Diving Into the Wreck

For this essay, I am going to be discussing the short story “Swimming” found on the New Yorker, and written by T. Cooper. I have chosen this story for many reasons, and among those reasons is the personal sadness I felt when I first read the story, almost as if the universe was placing a certain theme in my life, that only the main character could possibly understand. I am talking about running, the god given instinct felt by all men, inherent in the nature of fear, and brought out in all who feel sadness in its full intensity. Though in my short life I can not compare the sadness I have felt with that of losing a child at my own hand, but if I had been placed in that situation, if fate had tempted my soul with such a sequence of events, I would like to think I could find the strength to endure and the courage to not abandon all I had previously known. Yet I am able to reconcile the themes of grief, the mode of recovery, and the longing to escape such a terrible tale. I think in this piece, as I will discuss in later parts, the author was able to put into words a transformation we rarely get to observe in closeness, the kind of transformation that turns a kind man into a “just man” the kind of death that turns this world from a beautiful and happy place into a world that is closing in on our main character, that is forcing him to surface temporarily and gasp for air, much like he does when he finds peace in the water, wading breath after air, after sea. I firmly believe that

Adrienne Rich uses many poetic resources in her poem "Diving into the Wreck." In this poem a diver goes on a trip to investigate a shipwreck in the socially accepted schema. Rich shifts the role of the hero and the strategy for success in her second schema. In the second schema the hero goes on a journey where she discovers her true identity, both female and male.

“And it hits me, not then, but today, thirty years later. Thirty years too late”(91). Those are the words of Jessamyn Hope when speaking about her experience with regret regarding her life’s decisions, the major theme for her essay. Her essay tells the story about how she failed to overcome two life challenges, one having a direct physical impact and the other having a delayed impact. The essay “The Reverse Dive” by Jessamyn Hope is a narrative essay looking to persuade its reader through the use of analogy, empirical evidence, and appeal to emotion that one should face their challenges while they can to avoid regrets.

Have you ever wondered if the ordeals you went through could become a “rite of passage?” These ordeals could be a big event that could change a person’s entire foundation, such as marriage, or it can be something small, like being inspired to cook because of feedback. The novella, “The Body” written by Gordie Lachance, elaborates about the author’s childhood where he and his friends went through an ordeal that is a rite of passage. This ordeal was considered a journey for the boys as they believed in the frame and glory once they found the corpse of Ray Browser, a young boy around the same age as the author and his friends. The journey started out as an easygoing adventure, a playful type that could be considered as an innocent boy running in the park playing tag with his buddies. However, the journey changes into a more “serious business” for the author and his friends have to face many circumstances where it becomes flight-or-fight situations. In the novella, Gordie reveals many insights into the characteristics of his friends and himself

Personification is used in both passages to create vivid images of how the ships flounder during the process in order to accomplish the dreams that people persist in minds. In “The Cargo Hulks”, personification illustrates the natural hardship that the ship undergoes: “ferocious high seas thundering, merciless Antarctic gales, the howling challenge of the Horn.” The difficulties are symbols of the hunger,

Like an iceberg, Cole Douglas's depravity and lack of care and empathy for others lay ninety percent hidden. With his good looks and personable, charming demeanour on display for the world to see, the remainder of the twenty-three year old's true self lay in wait for an unsuspecting ship to pass in the middle of the night. To tear a ragged hole torn in it's hull and sink to the bottom of the ocean before it could react or the warning sirens be triggered. Forever damaged, even if was subsequently recovered from the murky depths.

Farrell argues, “Merely telling one’s story of trauma, however is not enough to begin the healing process” (186). Flashbacks are more than a memory, even if one tells others their flashbacks, one still would not understand the meaning or the significance of the intrusive memory. According to Caruth, “The flashbacks or traumatic reenactment conveys , that is both the truth of an event, and the truth of its incomprehensibility” (Caruth 153). In order for one to understand and heal from their trauma, one

Nick is a World War I veteran who, as many veterans, suffers from emotional trauma that his experiences from the war left him with. Multiple scenes throughout the story, Big Two Hearted River, relates to Nick, the main character’s, journey toward recovery. Nick describes his surroundings in way that parallels to his own experiences and current voyage in respect to his revival.. He takes a calming adventure saturated with calming natural paths over hills, through woodland, and along a river to find peace with himself and to return to his prewar state of mind.

Rather than exploring lighter tones in her stories, she can only express herself through trauma. Let’s now explore what methods Danticat uses to explore such literary cliché’s within ‘Children of the Sea’.

Each person experiences loss and the pain and grief that coincides with it at some point in their life. Often times, these people gain a new outlook on life, and begin to see the world differently. People change as a result of pain; they think and act differently. Margaret Atwood utilizes characterization through Verna’s presentation, thoughts, and actions in “Stone Mattress” to show that pain changes people.

Things that hurt you change the way you think. For example, in the memore “Night” a character named Miss.Shocker was separated from her husband and her two children's leaving her with only one. Consequently, she doesn’t handle it too well since she had never been separated from them. Effectively, she ends up going crazy and she would imagine fire. She would scream fire and cried and screamed making everyone get annoyed by her. As a result,

"The body may heal, but the mind isn't always so resilient" (William Taggart Deus Ex Human revolution) this means the if you are injured you can eventually you can heal, but sometimes you are scarred sometimes the wounds are buried so deep mentally, no amount of therapy, self-healing, positive thinking can fill that hole. It changes you. Both authors Sophocles and Paula Vogel explores, how character deal with great physical issues or mental pains and how they can regain their place in society or isolate themselves from it.

Sophia wanted to believe that this wasn’t it, that the world had more to offer than her endless suffering. With each step, she stepped into the icy waters, she wanted to believe that she could do more, be more. Thunder roared across the sky, as rain poured on her shoulders from the somber inky sky above. Her lip quivered, her entire body trembled; she didn’t want to do this, but it was the only way. Soon the current became too strong for her to fight against and in that instant, Sophia Lancaster disappeared into the murky

The Titanic, born from human greed and wed to fate’s punishment, is a modern icon of decadence. However, Hardy re-imagines this icon in his poem The Convergence of the Twain. Instead of an explicit critique of the ship’s ostentatious vanity, Hardy sees The Titanic’s sinking as the judgment for its “vaingloriousness” and a product of the ship’s conception, development, and wedding to fate.

Adrienne Rich’s poem “Diving into the Wreck” is a detailed piece written in free verse that discusses the emotional journey of her narrator as she sails out into sea to scuba dive and try to uncover a myth that she once read in a book. The narrator uses a detached tone while explaining her dive beneath the sea to show a constant image of lonesomeness and a clear focus of the actions of humanity. In doing so, she creates a feeling of isolation while discovering the wreck she originally came to find as well as an internal journey we soon come to find out.