Death by water

Authors note: This essay is about overcoming a fear of water that almost killed you.

In America about 36% percent of people can't swim and world wide about 54% can't swim. The story Deep Water instantly grabs by you saying “It had happened when I was ten or eleven years old”(434). You can’t help but read more after that. The author William O. Douglas focuses on the realism and actuality of the world. William O. Douglas represents the scary things that we have to over come in our lives.

The realism in this book is crazy good. One good example is when this ten-year-old is droning. “This is nice….to be drowsy….to go to sleep….no need to jump….to tired to jump…it’s nice to be carried….floating in space.  I crossed to oblivion, and the curtain of life fell”(435). One time when I was 9 I did that same exact thing, except I knew how to swim. But it was still as scary not expecting it and falling into deep water.

William O. Douglas. He focus on being as real as possible. He doesn’t have some fairy come and same the little boy that’s drowning. William O. Douglas talks about how this little boy has to overcome his fear of being in the water. He talks about how this little boy goes to swimming lessons and every time the instructor lets the safety rope have a little slack the little boy gets worried.

The other thing I want to talk about how William O. Douglas puts his words. One piece that really blew me away was “I crossed to Oblivion and the curtain of life fell” (435). That really makes the reader think .  In the first paragraph when the little boy is two or three years old his dad took him to a lake and the waves kept knocking him down. His dad was laughing because he knew nothing was going to happen to the little boy but the little boy just felt so powerless.­


Realism and actuality are something that William O. Douglas focuses on. Those are what makes his stories good, intrusting.