Summary of English Chapter 3 Deep Water Class 12
- At the age of ten or eleven, the author William Douglas decided to learn swimming. There was a pool at Y.M.C.A. (Young Men’s Christian Association) in Yakima. It offered him a good opportunity to learn but swimming in the Yakima River was quite dangerous. His mother had warned against it. But the Y.M.C.A pool was safe for swimming. It was 2 or 3 feet deep at the shallow end. At the deep end it was nine feet. The slope was gradual. He had an aversion to the water from the beginning. Once in the age of three or four he stood at California beach with his father. A wave swept over him and knocked him down. He was buried in water. He had developed a terror in his heart at the over powering force of the waves. The Y.W.C.A. pool revived those fear.
- The author was alone at the pool. He didn’t dare to go inside the water alone. Then a big bruiser of about eighteen suddenly came there. He picked the author up and tossed him into the nine feet deep end, and he went at once to the bottom. On the day down towards the bottom, he thought of making a big jump as his feet touched the bottom and came to the surface to escape to the share. But to the young child, those nine feet became more like ninety, and his lungs were about to burst on the way.
- He mustered up courage and according made a great jump upwards as planned. But he moved up slowly. He opened his eyes but saw nothing but water. He grew panicky. He was suffocating. He tried to cry but no sound came out. He swallowed water and choked. His legs were paralyzed and right.
- A great force pulled him under water. He was getting dizzy. He went down endlessly. He trembled with fear and his legs refused to more. But strangely there was light and his eyes and nose were almost out on the surface of water again.
- Then he started going doing third time sucking water instead of air. All efforts were gone, he relaxes and the darkness covered his brain. Now there was no fear, no terror. He felt like sleeping. When he woke up, he found himself lying on his stomach beside the pool. He was vomiting. The chap who threw him in said that he was only fooling. But the author had nearly died.
- For days he was constantly haunted by the fear. He never went back to the pool. He feared water and avoided it whenever he could. Whenever he went near water the terror would seize him. His legs got paralyzed. Icy Herron would grab his heart. The fear stays with him as the year rolled by.
- At last one October, the author got an instructor. He went to a pool. He practiced five days a week. The instructor put a belt round him. A rope attached to the belt round him. A rope attached to the belt went through a pulley. On each trip across the pool a bit of panic seized him. It was three months before the tension began to disappear. He taught the narrator how to put his face under water and exhale and then how to raise his nose and inhale. He repeated the exercise hundreds of time.
- Next, the narrator taught him how to kick with his legs. For weeks he did just that. At first his legs refused to work. But finally he could command them. At last, the instructor made him a real swimmer.
- But he was still not satisfied. He was not sure that all his fear had left. So he went to Lake Wentworth in New Hampshire and dived off a dock at Triggs Island. He swam two miles across the lake to Stamp Act Island. The fear fled and he swam on. Finally he had conquered his fear of water.
- The author’s experience of swimming had a deep meaning for him. There is terror only in the fear of death. In death, there is peace. Therefore, all one needs to fear is fear itself.
Summary of English Chapter 3 Deep Water Class 12
