-William Douglas
Text:
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Summary:
'Deep Water' by William Orville Douglas is actually an extract from his book 'Of Men and Mountain'.In this brief extract,he tells about his fear of water and how he conquered it by determination and willpower.
The narrator had an aversion to water since he was a child.As a small boy,when he was 3 or 4 years old,he would visit the beaches in California with his father.The waves would knock him down and sweep over him.This scared him of the might of the huge waves.Eventually,this let the fear for water get instilled in his mind.
However,when he was ten or eleven years old,he again decided to learn to swim.There was a pool at YMCA(Young Men's Christian Association)
which gave him an opportunity to learn swimming again.However,very soon he was a victim of a misadventure.
One day,he went to the pool,when nobody was around.The place was silent and the narrator was a bit nervous regarding the water.He was sitting on the side of the pool when suddenly,somebody pushed him.He was already frightened by then but remembered not to be out of his wits.On his way down to the water,he decided that he would take a large leap which will make him come back to the surface.Then,he would paddle to the edge of the pool.However,those 9 feets seemed like an infinite distance.Before even touching the bottom of the pool,it seemed like his lungs would burst.However,he still managed to summon all his strength and made a great spring upwards.He thought that he would Bob to the surface like a cork but he came up slowly.
When he came to the surface of the water,all around him was water which had a dirty yellow tinge to it.He panicked and tried bringing his legs up but failed miserably.Again,he started to go down.He was again sinking into the pool.He was again planning to spring up to the surface of the pool but his body didn't allowed it.After around 3 such unsuccessful attempts,he felt tired and slowly closed his eyes.It felt as if the curtain of life fell.
Next,when his eyes opened,he was lying beside the pool.Several hours later,he walked home.For many days,a haunting fear was in his heart which made him wobbly in the knees and sick in his stomach.After this incident,he never went back to the pool and avoided water whenever he could.
A few years down the line,when he came to know about the water of Cascades,he wanted to get into them.However,the terror from the incident in the pool would revisit him.This fear also ruined his trips and deprived him from the fun of canoeing,boating and swimming.He even tried multiple times to overcome this fear but always in vain.
Finally,one October,he hired an instructor and asked him to teach him swimming.He went to a pool and started to practise swimming 5 days a week.By continuous practice and sheer determination,he shed his fear.Next,for weeks,the instructor would hold him near the side of a pool and had him kick with his legs.He also tried swimming in the pool and had him kick with his legs.He also tried swimming in the pool alone sometimes to check if his fear has finally vanished and found that some part of it would still return.All the way of two miles,he covered by swimming himself and all alone.He eventually conquered his fear.
The narrator learnt a very significant lesson from his hydrophobia.He faced his fear from water in a humorous manner by challenging the fear on his face.It was only a baseless fear which was instilled in his mind.He had experienced both terror and the feeling of overcoming it.During this wonderful journey of conquering his fear,he realised that death is actually peaceful but the fear associated with it is actually horrifying.At last,feeling of overcoming his fear made his mind free and relaxed.
Difficult Words:
1)Treacherous:(Here)Presenting hidden or unpredictable dangers.
2)Hydrophobia:The fear from water.
3)Subdued:(Here)Restrained.
4)Aversion:Dislike.
5)Paddled:To move through water using legs.
6)Bob:A quick,short movement up and down.
7)Cork:A buoyant light brown substance.
8)Tinge:A trace of a colour.
9)Flailed:Moving, swinging or beating wildly.
10)Throbbed:Beat or sound with a strong regular rhythm.
11)Limp:To walk with difficulty.
12)Oblivion:The state of being unaware of what is happening around one.
13)Wobbly:Tending to move unsteadily from side to side.
14)Slack:Not held tightly in position.
15)Vestiges:Trace or remnant of something.
16)Canoeing:The act of driving a canoe.
About Author:
William Orville Douglas was an American jurist and politician who served as associate justice of the Supreme Court of the USA.He was born on October 16,1898 and died on January 19,1980.He was known for his outspoken progressive views.He was also an ardent advocate of environmentalism.
NCERT Questions:
A) Understanding the Text.
1)Douglas has very illustratively described the sense of panic that gripped over him as he drowned.He has described the entire incident in such a vivid manner that one could actually visualize the whole thing.He describes how he landed in sitting position,swallowed water and went at once to the bottom.On his way down,he planned that when his feet would hit the floor of the pool,he would take a great leap which would make him bounce back to the pool's surface.He described fearfully how those nine feet felt more like nine feet.And instead of bouncing back to the water surface,he came up slowly.This incident left a lasting mark on his mind.
2)Douglas badly wanted to get rid of his fear of water.He was very determined to do so and thus he even hired an instructor for it.He went to the pool and started practicing swimming for 5 days a week.Everytime,he went to the pool and beneath it,he would experience some part of the terror he had experienced in his last unfortunate incident at the pool.
3)The narrator as an adult has recounted a childhood experience of terror as he wanted to convey to his readers how he faced the fears he had as a child.The narrator has learnt a very valuable experience from this fear of water.He has now learnt from this that it is not actually the fear of drowning buut the fear associated with it was more troubling.After this,his will to live grew intensely and he felt relaxed.
B)Talking about the Text.
1)Earlier,I used to be scared of spiders.I had read somewhere that they were dangerous and poisonous.A fear had got instilled in my mind that they can kill humans.However,with the passage of time,that fear has vanished.
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