Eng 318 Creative Writing: Touching Assessment Answers
Story: Touching Bottom by Kari Strutt
“I know about currents now...Swim toward shore and you battle the current until you die.”
“How many fingers?” Dad asked at bath time.
I was afraid, but I ducked my head into the half-full white tub. I opened my eyes, then came up sputtering.
“Two.”
“That’s right.” Then his hand, broad as a rainbow, covered my head all the way to my ears, and slicked back my sopping hair. He wrapped me in a clean yellow towel, and the fear, what was left, evaporated.
I could open my eyes under water.
The summer I turned seven I went to Camp Kinaird with fifty other girls. “Where young girls learn to swim,” Dad quoted from the black text between the brochure photos of smiling kids.
“You should learn to swim,” he said, “you never know when you’ll end up in water that’s above your head.”
The camp instructors told me I was a good swimmer. My spindly arms cut the water like fins, and I could circle them at a furious pace. I learned to put my face in the water, turn my head for air. I was quick, like a water beetle, and I liked the feeling of the cool water pushing through my hair.
On the fifth day of swim lessons, the fat girl came to shore with a dark glistening streak on her back. Somebody shrieked, “You gotta leech on you,” and the shoreline became a seething mass of squealing, blue-lipped girls. The terror rang in my ears long after the camp counsellor salted the girl’s back and caught the writhing leech in an old tin can. She was still whimpering when we went back to the cookhouse for lunch.
For the rest of the summer I refused to go in the water. The other girls backstroked and side stroked and perfected their Australian crawls. The fat girl and I sat on the dock watching a black bloodsucker make its way across a yellow plastic bowl lodged in the sandy bottom near shore.
That fall my Dad signed me up for Red Cross swimming lessons. In a pool.
“You can start again,” Dad said, “I’m sure there are no leeches at the YMCA, but I’ll come and watch, just to be sure.”
When we got to the YMCA, Dad and I walked around the pool together, looking for leeches. I thought I saw one, but it was just a Band-Aid.
The pool water was clear blue-green and with my goggles on I could see the bottom. There were wide black lines painted along the length of it. I used the lines to make sure I was swimming straight. I finished all of the Red Cross lessons, then I joined a swim club and learned to race. I trained every day, back and forth in the pool, guided on either side by the lane markers—bright strings of plastic bubbles, led from blow by the thick black lines.
Task:
.Making a choice involves various considerations, including how it affects future life. How would a character's life be different had he or she made a different choice?
.Characters often have Little or no control over what happens to them. However, a character always has a choice in how he or she reacts to these events.
The impact of these choices are the focal point of the question.
Answer:
Touching Bottom by Kari Strutt is a short story that represents feminist criticism and deals with economic, social, political and psychological oppression of women. Through that medium many symbols are represented, first being water. There are four types of water that is represented through the characters: murky, pool, ocean and again the pool. Water is one of the key objects that help in escalating the story and building the main character (Markus). The murky water showed that when the main character’s father sent her to the summer camp, it is seen that she loves to swim with the other girls. However when one of the girls of the camp gets a leech stuck in her body, she is afraid to swim there. She develops the idea that there are animals or objects that can harm her. The leeches in the story represent the society and that is why she avoids the murky water (Cicourel). The pool water reflects the idea of confinement that she was not able to escape. Though she is safe while she in the pool, but she remains limited and bound. The ocean water shows that when she visits with her stepson and her husband, she feels uncomfortable. Despite the fact the ocean is large and free, she is pushed away by the strong current of the ocean. Finally she returns back to her confinement which is the pool water. The four types of water are contrasted to society as no matter what she did in her life, she was not accepted as she is.
A Marker on the Side of The Boat by Bao Ninh is a short story that is set in the Hanoi city during the time of the Vietnam War. The center characters include the main soldier who is the dynamic character and his daughter. After the battle of the soldiers asks for permission so that the can deliver letters to their loved ones. The theme reflects wars that brings sorrow and to the lives of many people (Bergerud). The center conflict for the characters is the theme of man vs. nature. The soldier left his home and his daughter who was hardly a year old. After a long time, he returns home for three days with his comrades. When he comes back he finds that his daughter has grown up and does not recognize him. She keeps his distance from him as he is a stranger to her which hurts the soldier a lot. One day when his daughter behaves rudely with him, he loses control and hits her that makes him feel guilty. However when she finally identifies her father, he has to return to the military (Short). Before going back he promises her that one day he will buy her a comb. The solider makes the comb during his time in the battlefield from a piece of ivory. Unfortunately he meets his demise in the battlefield and tells one of his closest friends that to pass on the comb to her as his last wish. Many years later when the soldier finally meets the girl he parts the father’s gift to the daughter.
References
Bergerud, Eric M. The Dynamics of Defeat: The Vietnam War in Hau Nghia Province. Routledge, 2018.
Cicourel, Aaron V. "The acquisition of social structure: Toward a developmental sociology of language and meaning." Everyday Life. Routledge, 2017. 136-168.
Markus, Gyorgy. "A society of culture: The constitution of modernity." Rethinking Imagination. Routledge, 2016. 15-29.
Short, Anthony. The origins of the Vietnam war. Routledge, 2014.
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