In a 5-6 page formal essay with a topic statement, describe the author’s perspective, philosophy, or purposes and explain how it is reflected in their work.
You must also discuss a second work by this author that we have not read in class. You will likely want to provide an explanation and discussion of an author’s commentary or interview and then demonstrate how this theme is explored through the use of literary concepts in one or more of their works.
Book 1:
Set in Detroit during the Great Depression,”The Deep” is the story of Tom, a young boy who grows up in a boardinghouse for itinerant salt miners. At the age of 4, Tom discovers he has a terminal condition known as an atrial septal defect, or “a hole in the heart.”
The doctor tells him he has a “Life span of sixteen. Eighteen if he’s lucky.”
Tom’s mother forbids him to do anything that might excite him. The improbability of his reaching manhood is both emasculating and touching, as Tom is barred from participating in normal activities with his peers. His mother keeps him home from school, imprisoned indoors.
He is only allowed downstairs for chores and meals. His childhood is completely devoid of enjoyment. Tom “misses school. He misses the sky. He misses everything.” As Tom grows older, his anxiety towards his imminent death increases. Eventually, he meets Ruby, a girl from his school who begins to take him on adventures and shows him the excitement and beauty that life can hold.
Tom begins sneaking out of his house so he can experience the life he has been robbed of because of his illness, going places he’s never dreamed possible. He begins to realize that he wants to live life to the fullest. He is willing to risk his health in order to spend time with Ruby and enjoy his life.
One day, Ruby asks Tom, “What’s it like? To know you won’t get all the years you should?” Tom thinks to himself, “I don’t feel so shortchanged when I’m with you.” While the papers fill up with stories of suicides, Tom gambles every day with his uncertain future.
Tom’s anxieties and reservations represent the struggles that many of us face throughout life. Ruby’s character, on the other hand, represents the risks we are willing to take and how they ultimately pay off in the end.
Eventually, Tom starts a job in the maternity wing of a nearby hospital in order to earn extra change. He watches healthy babies enter life while he slowly dwindles, saying, “World goes to Hades but babies still get born.” By this point, he has passed the age at which his doctors predicted he would die.
But he has lost all touch with Ruby and doesn’t live much of a life anymore. Doerr seems to rush through this part of the story to show the dull routine that has become Tom’s life. He stops hanging out with Ruby, who has moved on to build a family. Eventually, he stops enjoying anything. He often thinks about Ruby and what could have been but uses his illness as an excuse for losing touch.
Toward the end of the story, Tom accidentally runs into Ruby and reaches out to her one last time. They meet at a local aquarium, Ruby with her new baby boy. Tom sees how happy Ruby is and longs for what could have been.
But “The Deep” is about more than just unrequited love.
The main character must ultimately choose between either living a long life or one that is worth living. To his own dismay, and arguably Ruby’s since she decides to meet with him, Tom chooses the former option. Doerr fills the last few pages of his story with a tone of regret. We watch Ruby and her son slowly slip back into the crowd of people, leaving Tom on the bench, “alive for one more day.”
Whether or not you believe that Tom should have risked an early death in order to truly enjoy his life or continued to do whatever he could to preserve his health, Doerr’s story raises a question we all spend our lives trying to solve: What makes life meaningful?
BOOK 2:
About Grace, a novel by Anthony Doerr, revolves around David Winkler and the profound impact his dreams have on his life. In the past, David had dreamed of a death that came to pass. So, when David dreamed that he accidentally drowned his infant daughter, he feared that it would also come true.
To prevent the dream from becoming a reality, David abandoned his wife and infant daughter Grace. Now, twenty-five years later, he returns to apologize and make things right.
Indeed, David seems to have the gift of precognition, or clairvoyance. He is able to envision and dream things before they happen. Much of the early part of the novel weaves back and forth between the past and the present, blurring the lines between time, what is real, what is prophetic, what is memory, and what is a dream.
As the novel begins, David boards a plane from his home on the island of St. Vincent to his former home in Cleveland. David spends much of the flight recalling memories, until the novel shifts into the past.
The story flashes back to the 1970s. David, a weather forecaster, meets a woman named Sandy, and he is instantly attracted to her. A married bank teller, Sandy gently rebuffs David’s romantic advances, but ultimately decides to begin seeing him. Sandy is married to a man named Herman, who is very work-oriented and enjoys garlic salt too much for Sandy’s liking.
Still, she knows he is a good man and loves her. As time passes, David and Sandy grow closer, and begin sleeping together. Sandy becomes pregnant. She decides to run away with David, and the two leave Alaska by car for Ohio. There, they take up residence in a beautiful house on Shadow Hill Lane and soon have their daughter, Grace.
One night, David has a dream in which the house is flooded and his attempt to rescue Grace results in her death. Having seen in other dreams the deaths of others that later occurred, David worries this dream will also come true.
During a bad storm, the river floods, and David refuses to stick around. After reporting on the weather, David flees to New York. He boards a ship to flee the country, and he disembarks in St. Vincent. David writes home frequently to explain what has happened. He tries to call, but he never receives a response. In St. Vincent, he befriends a local family.
The family includes husband Felix, wife Soma, and daughter, Naaliyah. The family senses unhappiness in David, and they take him under their wing. David tries to contact Sandy to explain why he had to leave. He never makes contact. Eventually, David learns that Sandy has gone back to Alaska.
For the next twenty-five years, David lives and works in St. Vincent. While living with his new found family, he works to instill a love of science in their daughter, Naaliyah. When David dreams of Naaliyah’s death by drowning, he intervenes in time in real life to save her.
The family is very grateful, and David learns his dreams are not fate. They are by choice. Naaliyah goes on to study at a graduate school in Alaska, while David decides to return home to find Sandy and Grace.
In the library, he learns Sandy has died a few years before of cancer. David is devastated. He travels across America, seeking out young women who have the name Grace and who also have either his or Herman’s last name.
After no success, David heads to Alaska to stay with Naaliyah a short time. While there, he learns from Soma where Herman now lives. David contacts Herman. Much to Herman’s surprise, David has forgiven the past.
Herman helps David reconnect with Grace –and Grace’s son, Christopher. Grace is enraged that David has come back into her life so suddenly after abandoning her.
However, David is determined to make things right. When he has a prophetic dream about Herman dying of a heart attack, David and Christopher rush to Herman’s office and save his life.
Herman decides he will retire, while Grace decides to allow David back into their lives. In a dream, David is visited from Heaven by Sandy, who makes peace with David for the past.
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