Category Archives: Week 14: The Deep

Week 14: The Deep

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These chapters of The Deep made me feel a sense of sympathy for Yetu as she was experiencing an internal struggle between picking herself or others. She is torn between her duty to her community and her own need for self-preservation. Without her identity as a historian, who was she? When she first experiences life without the burden of memories, she finds herself capable of making a deeper connection with someone else. She experiences emotions, connections, and conversations that were previously out of reach for her.

The passage that ends chapter 7 is what really stuck with me. It reads, “At least with pain there was life, a chance at change and redemption. The remembering might still kill her but the wajinru would go on, and so, too, would the rest of the world. The turbulent waves were a chaos of her own making and it was time to face them (126).” Despite the pain Yetu endures as a result of the History, it affirms that these experiences are a vital part of her existence. She realizes that this pain is a testament to her growth and the ability to persevere in the face of adversity. She carries the immense burden of her peoples’ memories and is forced to experience the trauma and pain first hand. She is burdened by the weight of their memories and chose her mental and emotional well-being as she couldn’t continue to sacrifice herself for them. But, she ultimately realizes that she needs to help her people in order to save them. Even though she knows this will cause her pain that may even kill her, she is willing to put others first. She realizes that her role as the historian is not just a burden but also a vital aspect of her identity and purpose. Her people rely on her to preserve the History and their culture and that abandoning them would be leading to far-reaching consequences. She acknowledges that this chaos is in part of her decisions and is willing to face the internal and external struggles that await. She is ready to confront the painful memories she has been suppressing and embrace the responsibility she has as Historian. Although this is her “job,” I still find myself feeling bad for her as she did not choose to have this life. It seems unfair that she doesn’t get to experience much happiness in life unless she is away from her community where she doesn’t have to constantly relive trauma.

Week 14: The Ocean as Mother

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There’s something so profound about how the themes of creation and motherhood work within Rivers Solomon’s The Deep. We can see how important motherhood is held through the creation of the womb that protects the wajinru from being preyed on while remembering, the relationship between Yetu and her amaba, and the wanjiru’s origins as the babies of pregnant African women who were thrown overboard during the Atlantic slave trade. Most importantly, we can see it in how the ocean is portrayed as an entity that first taught the wajinru to breathe underwater.

In the last chapter of The Deep, Yetu tells her amaba that she is trying to remember what it was like to be in the womb that carried the very first wajinru, to have a two-legged mother, and to be born to breathe air instead of water. Amaba then tells Yetu that there is little to no difference between the waters of the womb and the ocean water that surrounds them all. In a way, they are all still in the womb, always in a state of growth, change, and potential. They were carried in water and born into water. “It is all waters.” (149)

The centering of motherhood and creation in The Deep centers the stories and experiences of women through the reframing of the ocean as the creator and holder of all life on land and in the sea, more than a womb and more than a home. The ocean serves as a protector for those who seek refuge in its depths and as a teacher for those who are willing to learn. The story allows its female characters–and the ocean itself–to define themselves as more than just mothers or warriors, but as explorers, teachers, and historians as well.

Week 14- The Deep

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After reading further into the Deep, Yetu’s story got more interesting. At the opening with chapter 5 and the descriptions of being immobile the last year, lost in memories and floating, which I found quite intriguing. Just picturing her floating, lost in remeberingings of others, and having to carry that will is an insane concept. Even though her body was slowly failing on her, for lack of movement, she was still strong in her Will. This is such an impressive and personable aspect of Yetu, the survival it takes to do something like this. I liked her connection with the Wajinru and her link to their history, buried and untold. Her need to escape this pressure and her people was sad, but also thinking about having that burden is a lot to carry, remembering the trauma and loss of others.
I want to focus on the section in chapter 5, with Yetu being in and out of conciseness. It says “Strangely, she was breathing with her mouth and nose, too, sucking in air from her surrounding with the two narrow slits in her face and her wide mouth. She didn’t know that she could do that. It was a new, uncomfortable feeling, and her lungs felt unsatisfied.” (page 71) This specific scene in chapter 5 stood out to me because of the descriptions of the uncomfortablility that Yetu felt- for the fact that this was an unnatural act. This just reminds me of the connection of nature and mermaids- especially the ocean- as they are made to be in the ocean and not land. They way that the land was supposed to represent Yetu getting away from her respoaseibilites and the weight she carried, further showed how it was “wrong.” The land is not her nature place, she is not meant to be there, and she knew that with the fact that her breathing on land felt wrong. She knew that she was supposed to be in the ocean, to feel the weight of her life, even if It was hard. This entire scene in chapter 5, when she saw the “two-legs approaching” and how she bared her teeth and prepared to attack, further shows my statement from before to be true. She is not meant to be on land- she is an creature of the ocean and animals. Overall, I really liked how this reading further showed the connection of Yetu to the Ocean and nature, and her natural state is where she is supposed to be.

The Deep Ch 5-7

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While reading through this week’s chapters, many thoughts went through my head with even some personal reflection on my life. Yetu’s responsibility and role of being a historian is obviously a huge task to take on especially at such a young age and personally, I don’t blame her from swimming away from that duty. I view the Wajinru’s “Remembrance” ceremony pretty selfish of them where they have a desire to remember their history and suffer the pain like Yetu has only for them to wipe their hands after a few days of pain and dump everything back on that poor girl. When Yetu was conversating with Oori about her past, Oori said, “All dead I’m am the last of the Oshuben” (pg92) I feel like this brings out a similarity between the two because Yetu is the only historian as the previous one Basha has already died. I think this is good for Yetu because she can sort of relate to someone for once when she couldn’t even relate to her Amaba. On page 99 Amaba asks Yetu what about the History could be so maddeing. When Yetu says the part about three children exploding Amaba replies, “Why are you telling me these horrible things” indicating that Amaba had barely any effort to understand where Yetu is feeling. Looking from a broader view, I believe history should be available to everyone (and not for a limited time) so people can learn from previous mistakes and understand their culture, values, and traditions. Leaving history to one person allows the opportunity to manipulate it to one own’s advantage, not saying that Yetu will do this, but we see this being done in today’s education system.

Week 14: Nature Doesn’t Need Validation.

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Sorry for the short post, everyone. It’s been a very difficult weekend, so my creative juices aren’t flowing as freely.

This remark encapsulates an important aspect of Wajinru living. The whale, which represents nature’s protective and caring features, cares for the Wajinru and even feeds their smallest members. Our need to assign specific meanings and purposes to everything contrasts dramatically with nature’s intrinsic ability to exist in harmony and serve its surroundings.

People frequently seek meaning and purpose via their actions and lives. Everything, to humans, has a certain function. We provide little to no wiggle space for these specified reasons to change, and we are terrible at admitting when something does not contribute to society in the way we EXPECT. As we strive to understand our place in the world, we assign events, objects, and relationships significance. Nature, however, functions in a different way. Without making a conscious effort to define its function, each component of the ecosystem operates in tandem. This natural hierarchy is best demonstrated by the whale in the quotation, which provides care and nourishment without needing to justify its actions or seek acceptance from others.

Entering Chapter 3 of “The Deep,” readers are prompted to consider the complexities of human perception and our proclivity to provide meaning where it is not required. We are urged to contemplate the natural world’s intrinsic equilibrium of cohabitation, as well as the balance of seeking meaning through the lens of the Wajinru’s story and their relationship with the whale.

Sorry, again, for the brevity. I’ll see you all in class.

Week 14: Identity in The Deep

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Chapter five of The Deep explores Yetu’s struggle with her identity as she chooses to leave the Remembrance in fear that the weight of carrying her ancestors’ memories will kill her. As Yetu is leaving, she considers how her actions will impact the wajinru and wonders if her community will “be as lost in the face of [remembering] as she’d always been” (66). This moment demonstrates the emotional burden that these memories have on Yetu. The suffering of her ancestors weighs heavy on her mind, at times even consuming her. For example, at the start of the story, Amaba finds Yetu in a circle of sharks. In chapter three readers learn that Yetu “went to the waters of the great whites” because the act of remembering has “pulled her deeper and deeper into the abyss of the past” (40). In other words, the memories consume her to the point where she forgets “who she is altogether” (38) and embodies her ancestors. The burden of history becomes intertwined with Yetu’s sense of self, making it difficult for her to separate herself from the responsibilities of being the Historian.

Since Yetu is completely immersed in her ancestor’s experiences, she is given little time to discover herself or process the weight of these memories. In chapter five, when Yetu is traveling up to the surface, she concludes that the area “was familiar” but she couldn’t decide if it was from personal experience or a part of wajinru history. She explains that “whenever she tried to concentrate on anything specific, it slipped through her mind like sand through her webbed fingers. She could feel it still, but she didn’t know it” (67). To put it simply, Yetu’s inability to differentiate her experiences from those of the past has made her disconnected from herself. This moment highlights the central theme of identity and encourages readers to consider how collective trauma impacts individuality. Yetu is consumed by the suffering of the past and it’s inhibiting her from creating her own memories and experiences. Overall, this chapter helps readers understand the weight of collective trauma and the difficulties that come with navigating this suffering.

Week 14: Individual Identity vs The Culture/History of a People

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For this weeks’ blog I want to zone in on the big debate I found to be posed in chapter 5: Does history and culture give significance to the human existence or does our own personalities and experiences do that? I feel like throughout the chapter Yetu was sort of going back in fourth between wanting to be apart of the culture and history of her people saying how “she missed being a part of not just the sea, but the whole world. Without the History, she felt out of place and out of time. She missed being connected to it all.” (Page 82) These are feelings are arising after she, herself, decided to abandon her people and let them remember the history of their past all by themselves, knowing it would bring them suffering and maybe forgetting it all together, as they were innately compelled to do. On the opposite side of that very same coin though, she understood that with “connection came responsibility. Duty choked independence and freedom.” These two differing views give me the impression that there is a fine line in honoring culture and giving up your own identity to follow a lifestyle that was made by a people at a time you didn’t exist to now exist in a time that they don’t.

One may ponder the idea of why should we remember our culture at all? Why dont we make our own new experiences as we go along? I think the answer to that perplexing question is that the feeling of belonging to something bigger than ourselves feeds our insatiable hunger to feel special; like we have a purpose and importance in this big world. I feel it’s important to find a balance between what came before you and what is presented now. Times are ever changing, therefore adjusting traditions in order to keep them from being fully rejected by the people it no longer serves can not only cultivate an environment that does not infringe upon personal expressions and freedoms, but also preserves that sense of belonging to a bigger purpose and therefore satisfying our inherently primal instinct for connection all in one fell swoop.

Week 14 The Deep

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The text that really caught my attention in this week’s reading is on page 84. “They organized the world as two sides of a war, the two-legs in conflict with everything else. The way Suka talked about farming, it was as if they ruled the land and what it produced, as opposed to… existing alongside it” (Solomon 84) It’s a great passage about the human condition delivered through the point of view of Yetu. Throughout the semester we have been discussing the relationship between us and our natural environment. We see that the attitudes have certainly changed over time but for many societies they have truly seen it as something separate from us. i like that the passage also describes human history as one that is constantly at war. That is certainly how history is commonly taught to us. We can orient ourselves within a point of time based on the wars that were being fought and of course, the way that history is taught is commonly taught through the perspective of the conqueror of these wars. We then treat our relationship with the environment as if waging a war against it for our own means of profit. It is something we come in contact with only under our terms. Through these mermaids the book has shown us what living alongside our environment, as a part of it, might look like. I like that later on Yetu comments on her dislike of how the rain breaks water apart, she is so used to it operating as 1 whole body. The Wajinru are simply one more organism forming a part of this one body of water. This again reinforces the ideas of unity that are so prevalent in her community that most of the westernized world does not possess.

Week 14: The Deep

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For the Wajinru, the role of the Historian greatly differs from historians for us as humans, or “two-legs”. When Yetu reveals her role as historian to Oori, Oori asks Yetu “‘Were you like a storyteller then?'”. For humans, being a historian is the same as a storyteller, sharing our histories throughout the ages with stories.

While our history can often be painful, we do not experience it in the same way as Yeti, but are not completely void of it as the rest of the wajinru. We are able to share histories both verbally through stories and recorded in words. We have the pleasure of being able to pick up a book and read history, a luxury the wajinru do not get in the ocean. We learn in chapter 6 that even sharing the history verbally with other wajinru is not possible, or too painful an experience for anyone other than Yetu. When she tried to tell her Amaba about her rememberings “frothy water spewed from Abama’s mouth as she made gurgled, choked noises. This is why Yetu was to remain silent about the things she knew” (Solomon, 100).

The wajinru are “consumed with desire” to know the history and understand the past (Solomon, 8). But for Yetu, she describes her role to Oori as holding all the memories of the generations inside her as “six hundred years of pain” (Solomon, 94). A fight sparks between Yetu and Oori when Oori learns that Yetu gave up the memories of her ancestors. Oori explains “‘I would take any amount of pain in the world if it meant I could know all the memories of the Oshuben… Doesn’t it hurt not to know who you are?'” (Solomon, 94). For Oori, a human, it is difficult for her to understand why Yetu would let go of her memories of the past. Especially as a person who has lost all of her history. However, the history of the ocean cannot be recorded in the same way as the history of the land. The characters different orient of views, ocean and land, creates a rift between them. The novel reveals a lot about the importance of history, how we view history, desire of knowledge of the past and self, and the weight the truth carries.

Week 14: Ch. 5

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Chapter 5 really touched me because it showed me how prevalent this book is today. We live in a world with so much going on— wars, ethnic cleansings/genocides, sex trafficking etc etc, and a lot of these things, historical or present, or concealed. History is erased; these experiences are not acknowledged or recognized as significant enough to be more important than certain political agendas, and it is so sad.
Yetu assumes a heavy responsibility. I feel that this is a type of responsibility that many people who have experienced devastating events such as war go through due to attempting preserve history, memories, culture etc. Our identity, or at least what we know of it, is ultimately defined by such devastation and the responsibility of preserving it. I think Yetu wanted to break free from that responsibility and wanted to see herself as Yetu and not just a keeper of memories.