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symbolism of water in literature
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Water as the Source of Pain, Relief, and Satisfaction in John Irving's The Water Method Man
People often find that they feel confined within a certain situation and lack control over their life. One result of such behavior may cause a person to get stuck in a stalemate trying to escape their daily routine without the social skills to do so. Fred Trumper in John Irving's The Water Method Man experiences different situations on a day to day basis. He is unable to understand why his life has taken the course that it has or what his purpose is in it. Irving explores Trumper's quest for identity and uses the presence of water in the novel to relate Trumper's state of mind to the reader.
The Water Method Man opens with an explanation of the water method to Trumper by his urologist. Initially, Trumper uses water as a source of relief for his urinary tract disorder, but both the reader and Trumper do not know if the treatment will be successful. He consumes great amounts of water before and after sex in order to correct his crooked tract. The water method is a reflection of how Trumper treats his daily life. Like Trumper's disorderly urinary tract, Irving formats the novel so that Trumper's life appears as a non-sequential history of events that the reader must consume in great amounts, like water, in order to understand Trumper's life and character. If the reader is left to use a "water method" of his own to comprehend Trumper's life, then it can be concluded that Trumper himself does not view his life in an orderly fashion and may question its occurrences.
Trumper's use of the water method not only explains the broad manner through which Trumper and the reader can understand his life, but signals the reader as to when Trumper is happy. When the water method is successful and his urinary tract is straight for some time, Trumper finds himself in a steady relationship with Biggie or Tulpen. Trumper appears the most content with Tulpen when he is in a safe routine with her, rituals like, eating yogurt, making love, and drinking coffee. At this point in his life, Trumper is able to view the water method nonchalantly, as a positive part of his life:
The only variation made by the water method is minor, and falls somewhere after love and during coffee.
The story describes the protagonist who is coming of age as torn between the two worlds which he loves equally, represented by his mother and his father. He is now mature and is reflecting on his life and the difficulty of his childhood as a fisherman. Despite becoming a university professor and achieving his father’s dream, he feels lonely and regretful since, “No one waits at the base of the stairs and no boat rides restlessly in the waters of the pier” (MacLeod 261). Like his father, the narrator thinks about what his life could have been like if he had chosen another path. Now, with the wisdom and experience that comes from aging and the passing of time, he is trying to make sense of his own life and accept that he could not please everyone. The turmoil in his mind makes the narrator say, “I wished that the two things I loved so dearly did not exclude each other in a manner that was so blunt and too clear” (MacLeod 273). Once a decision is made, it is sometimes better to leave the past and focus on the present and future. The memories of the narrator’s family, the boat and the rural community in which he spent the beginning of his life made the narrator the person who he is today, but it is just a part of him, and should not consume his present.
One of the central themes in As I Lay Dying is the attachment to nature. Darl relates, "the still surface of the water a round orifice in nothingness, where before I stirred it awake with the dipper I could see maybe a star or tow in the bucket, and maybe in the dipper a star or two before I drank"(455). His physical necessities are being met, which is another central theme in As I Lay Dying, translates to meeting your needs and surviving through out all the tragedies that occur. But here Faulkner shows that there is some progress, due to Darl finding a way to enhance the experience of drinking plain old water by drinking it out of a wooden bucket. The wooden bucket enriches the flavor of water, and connects you to nature through taste. Hence, Darl has found a better way to satisfy his needs.
The setting of the film itself sets the stage for the importance of water: Los Angeles. LA is one of America’s most populated and metropolitan cities and the need for water is high, which can create issues as Los Angeles is, as one of the representatives says in the scene where Gittes is observing Hollis Mulwray speak for the first time at a conference, a desert. In a desert, water is scarce and it is a necessity. Water is essential to all living things, and water is needed to stay alive and to function Particularly at the time and in the location the movie was set, the lack of water in the city was causing farmers extreme difficulty and drastically hurting the economy. Thus, he who possessed the water possessed the power.
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is filled with death and sorrow. They occur in almost every aspect of the book. The four "squares" of the book, Walter, Victor, the monster, and the cottagers, all suffer from them at one time or another. Some perceive Frankenstein as a horror story; however, in actuality it is a book of tragedy and despair. Every page reveals more misery than the page before. Thus, death and sorrow are inevitable in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
The older tradition of “taking the waters” dates back to ancient Greece and Rome, a time when baths were regularly used by citizens and hygiene was held in high regard. The belief that water had many natural benefits for the body, mind, and soul was not a new one. Taking the waters had a long history in European medicine and water was viewed as having healing qualities for numerous conditions. The resurgence in the idea of water having a wide range of healing powers came from a man named Vincent Priessnitz, who lived 1799-1851. Priessnitz is thought to be the first to create the blueprints for water therapy, which he named hydropathy. Once opening a hydropathic institution people traveled from all around the world for its supposed healing abilities and not long after this practice of water therapy became known around the world. Soon enough similar institutions focusing on water therapy began to open around Europe and spread to America. Hydropathy attracting a wide range of people in all classes of society. This practice was not only attracting ordinary citizens but also those from the higher classes of European and American society.
Regina was a healthy baby, toddler, and preschooler, or so her parents thought. Regina did have some unexplained incidents. When she was just a baby, there were a couple of occasions where she cried nonstop. As a toddler, Regina visited the emergency room occasionally with intense stomach aches. In addition, when she was in preschool, her parents would sometimes get a phone call from the school nurse saying, “Regina has a tummy ache and wants to go home.” When the doctors examined her, there was no explanation or answer to what was causing her severe stomach pain. Since Regina’s incidents were very far apart from one another, her parents did not think to worry.
Through her usage of water as a motif, Morrison expresses her feelings and helps us to better understand the novel. Water comes to represent birth, re-birth, and freedom and escape from slavery. There is also a deeper meaning to all of this. Water also comes to represent a sort of life force for Beloved. When she just appears for the first time, she comes out of the water. But she also needs to drink a vast amount of water. It seems as though she needs the water to survive. For Sethe, water comes to mean both a sort of re-awakening and a symbol of freedom. This is apparent through her actions and emotions when she was bathed by Baby Suggs. Water also represents freedom for Paul D. This is because he escaped due to the mud created by the water. The motif of water is well used throughout the book to come to signify many things to the characters.
Purcell, Aaron D. "Eugenics movement." Encyclopedia of American Immigration. Ed. L. Bankston Carl. 3 vols. Salem Press, 2010. Salem History Web. 17 Mar. 2014.
to do. Water in this case refers to life and re-birth. A third piece of
The narrator of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is the victim of his own naiveté. Throughout the novel he trusts that various people and groups are helping him when in reality they are using him for their own benefit. They give him the illusion that he is useful and important, all the while running him in circles. Ellison uses much symbolism in his book, some blatant and some hard to perceive, but nothing embodies the oppression and deception of the white hierarchy surrounding him better than his treasured briefcase, one of the most important symbols in the book.
...thing but the continual torrent of concepts across the page. The turgid stream of blood coursing through my veins made of water is magic. The birth canal for original life, the place where land meets water is magic. The potential for life wherever there is water is magic. The feeling of being connected to everything through water is magic. The best memories in life can surface because water is magic. This only ripples the surface for some of the ways water is magic. My ten minutes of water watching brings to me a lifetimes reverie, and it represents one sentence of one page of my thirty-two year tome. The ultimate magic of water is that it is an billion year book, it tells an endless story, and provokes an endless bubbling of insight.
Water. It expresses its’ power in the form of hurricanes and flash floods. It displays its gentleness, washing dirt off a child's scabbed knee. Water has been used to quench the thirst of many longing throats; and it has been the cause of death to those who unfavorably crossed its path. It possesses the power of total destruction, yet it holds the bases of all life. Generally, water has symbolized cleanliness and renewal. In the Bible, water was used in Baptism, cleansing the soul of original sin and offering a new life in the light of God. Water in itself is a natural purifier, washing the dirt from our bodies. Water is a symbol of transition-from dirty to clean. In Beloved, Morrison uses water to introduce a transition between stages in a character's life. Water separates one stage of a character's life from another.
Warren, Barbara Jones, PhD, RN, C.N.S.-B.C., P.M.H. (2011). Two sides of the coin: The bully and the bullied. Journal of Psychosocial Nursing & Mental Health Services, 49(10), 22-9.
Sometimes, there are some books that have such intriguing characters in them, that captivate the reader, and make him wonder. Such character is Dr. Stockmann from ‘An enemy of the people’, by Henrik Ibsen. However, to understand the complexity and richness of this character, first one must know the plot of the story. Dr. Stockmann is a doctor that lives in a Norwegian city, whose main attraction are the ‘Baths’. They bring a lot of money to the city, but he is not certain of their healthy quality. So he makes a research and finds out that the ‘Baths’, as he had suspected, are unhealthy for the people. Then, he decides that the right thing to do is inform his townspeople of the polluted water, and protect them. However as it turns out, not everyone is in favor of this discovery, especially his brother, the mayor, who successfully turns everyone against him. Throughout this ‘battle ‘between him and the town, and the way he handles the situation, some traits of Dr. Stockman’s personality, come out. As he is presented in the book, Dr. Stockmann is naïve, selfish and moral.
doubts is shattered. As those who drink water will feel the hot or cold by