In this week’s reading of The Deep, I would like to focus on a passage in the text that I found rather comforting. While Yetu is leaving the Wajinru, she experiences different memories and rememberings in different parts of the ocean. She realizes she’s unsure of if these memories are hers or not, but in drifting she feels a sense of identity has appeared. Something that she has struggled with since she carries the remembering of her community. Specifically, “Rememberings didn’t haunt her. She was just Yetu. She wasn’t quite sure who that was, but she didn’t mind the unknowing because it came with such calm, such a freedom from the pain.” This part of the chapter brought me some comfort, mainly because in Western and/or certain individual perspectives, the Ocean has been seen as this scary vast force that entails danger. This part of the book challenges that. The feeling that there could be comfort and familiarity in this huge space even though it is unknown. And the factor of it being unknown it doesn’t deem it scary or dangerous was a refreshing point of view.
I appreciate this specific part of The Deep because it pushes me to hold (even more) of a personal and intimate perspective on the Ocean and I also like that it challenges the view of sublimity associated with the Ocean since it suggests that the Ocean can heal and comfort individuals, like Yetu in this case.
Hi Naomi, I agree that identity was a really strong theme throughout the chapters we read this week, as well as the first couple of chapters. I think it also raises the question of how we come to define our own identities, and how this can vary from culture to culture. It shows what we think is important, and how independent we consider ourselves from the people in our communities. I think this can also perhaps be compared to how nowadays living in the past can leave us with little of our own identity, but staying present and enjoying life leaves us with a stronger sense of identity.
Hi Naomi! I really liked how you focused your discussion on the aspect of Yetu’s identity. I liked how you discussed that the comfort of the Ocean and the unknown, and how she was comforted by the wide ocean space. This is something our western society contradicts, not liking the unknown, and I like how you focused on how in this story is “grounded” Yetu.