Note making of deep water chapter
Answers
The excerpt “Deep Waters” is taken from ‘Of Men and Mountains’ by William O. Douglas. It reveals how as a young boy William Douglas nearly drowned in a swimming pool. In this essay, he talks about his fear of water and thereafter, how he finally overcame it.
- The author decides to learn swimming at the age of 10 or 11 years.
- He decides to start with a safe swimming pool because he already faces an incident at the age of three years when he holds onto his father in California beach but still was overtaken by the waters.
- He picks the YMCA pool which is 2 or 3 feet at the shallow end and 9 feet at the deeper end and he starts learning how to swim step by step.
- One day, he comes to the pool and finds no one. As he holds a fear of water already, he waits for anyone to come and swim along with him. A guy around 18 years old comes and tosses William into the deep end of the pool.
- Not being able to breathe, he decides to land at the bottom of the pool and toss back to the shore like a cork. But, his thought of the technique doesn't work. He comes back very slowly instead of tossing like a cork.
- The fight for his life starts. He yells but only the waters could hear him.
- With a huge fight and finally he senses the loss of his breath, lungs ached, head throbbed and he was getting dizzy. Terror seizes him and he tries to shout for help. All his effort ceased, it gets quiet and peaceful and the curtains of life falls down for him.
- He gets saved by the boy who tossed him. He heads to home after several hours but he becomes weak and trembled. The fear starts haunting him all his life.
- He tries every possible way to overcome his fear but nothing would work. He finally hires an instructor who trains William to swim taking it very slowly.
- With an ample amount of effort and practice, William could even swim lakes. While still, at times he experiences fear when in water, but yet overcomes the fear with his expertise.
- He states that “In death there is peace, but there is terror only in the fear of death”.
Answer:
In the story, "Deep Water" Douglas talks about his fear of water and how he had developed it when he was a child. Once at the age of three or four years, he had visited a California beach with his dad and a wave swept across him and he got knocked down by it.
Since then, he dreaded water. Later, when he was young and learning to swim, one of the big boys played a prank on him and pushed him in the YMCA pool in Yakima where he nearly got drowned. But later, he decided to conquer his fear and started learning to swim and finally got over it. The story also shows that everyone can get over one's fear.