82 pages • 2 hours read
Alex FlinnBreathing Underwater
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2001A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
Fantasy Versus Reality in the Postmodern Novel
The theme of fantasy, or fiction, versus reality, or truth, is significant in the novel because we see how Nick establishes these clear binaries throughout every aspect of his life. His life at home is the truth, but no one can know, so he puts on a mask and lives in the fiction of his school life with Tom and his friends. When Tom asks about his father, Nicks spins a fictional tale about his father being busy with work, which, although it may be true, is not the whole truth. When Nick feels stressed or afraid, he seeks refuge in a fantasy in which he is more like Tom, with Tom’s family, Tom’s dog, and Tom’s football skills. Eventually, Mario teaches Nick that creating and believing a fantasy can be positive once you understand why you need one and you have confronted the truth. Nick’s escapism becomes a coping mechanism for dealing with his father and his struggle to control his own emotions.
Therefore, it is surprising and meaningful that Nick, knowing that the judge or Mario can read his journal despite their promise not to, immediately declares that he has decided to write his truth in it. He is given the opportunity to spin another fantasy about his life being fine, but instead, he breaks down the binary of fiction and reality to blend it all together. He gradually learns that to live a reality in which he is a good person, he must first believe in the fictional world where that is possible; performance can become truth. Similarly, when his poem is published at the insistence of his English teacher, Nick finally begins to envision himself in the role of the author, a role he has actually been performing the entire novel. We see events and characters through his eyes and must inevitably question whether he is an unreliable narrator performing redemption and exaggerating others’ behavior to justify his own.
However, even if Nick’s redemption is performative and part of an elaborate coping fantasy, its effect on the audience is real, further blurring the line between fiction and reality. This is a cornerstone of postmodern metafiction that provides the reader with the tools to dismantle its own narrative yet still succeeds in its impact. The postmodern novel is less concerned with truth and more concerned with conveyed meaning. In other words, Nick’s emotional journey is not diminished by his potentially unreliable account of it. Thus, the narrative-within-a-narrative format blending present events with italicized flashbacks highlights the novel’s concern with these issues of fantasy, reality, and the author.
The Generational Cycle of Violence and Fear
Nick’s abuse of Caitlin is a response to his fear of losing her. When he is afraid she is flirting with another boy in the choir room, he yells at her. When he feels threatened by Elsa’s critique of him, he forces Caitlin to stop seeing Elsa. When he fears being embarrassed by Caitlin as she goes against his wishes and performs her choir solo, he beats her so severely, Tom needs to step in. Caitlin forgives Nick’s abuse up until that point because she loves him and she knows that Nick’s father beats him. She also knows that Nick is influenced by the abandonment of his mother. Because his mother left him, Nick fears Caitlin will also leave him and lashes out in violence. This generational abuse and neglect, while not excusing Nick’s violence, nonetheless explains it for Caitlin and for the audience. Flinn’s exploration of fear and abuse highlights the generational pattern that abuse can take.
Even the perpetrators of this kind of violence are on some level aware that they are continuing the cycle of their parents’ violence. In the group sessions, Nick listens to some members admit that their parents were abusive; some of them praise this type of parenting, and others resent it, all while still participating in the generational pattern. In the end, the group members, especially Nick, learn that they can break this cycle. He understands that he has the power to hear his father’s abusive voice in his head, acknowledge it and how it makes him feel, and deal with those emotions in a nonviolent way. He can take control of his actions. He repeatedly declares that he does not want to be like his father, and he does not want to beat his own kids. Whereas his father used the generational violence inflicted on him by his own father to justify his abuse of Nick, Nick finally uses his father’s violence as an example of a family cycle he does not wish to perpetuate.
Overcoming Trust Issues and Embracing Vulnerability
Nick refuses to confide in anyone about the abuse he is suffering at the hands of his father because he thinks he should be old enough to endure it. He feels shame, fear of judgment, and fear of retaliation from his father. When he tells Caitlin and Tom finds out, he is cornered into admitting the truth. Even when his English teacher reveals that she has suspected the abuse for a while, Nick has trouble confirming it. She writes a letter to Nick’s father subtly hinting at her knowledge of the situation, and the letter is both a veiled threat to Nick’s father and a gesture of kindness to Nick. She is calling for Nick to trust her, and even though he cannot—because he cannot trust anyone—she reassures him that he is a strong person and talented writer. He also cannot trust this image of himself.
The interaction with Miss Higgins is significant for Nick’s learning to trust others. Up until then, he has felt isolated, bearing the burden of his father’s abuse alone. Even with Caitlin, he is alone in dealing with his erratic behavior and emotions toward her. Writing in his journal, he is able to reflect that at one point he almost wanted to tell Tom about everything but could not. Slowly, he begins to open himself up to the people in his group, accepting them as an audience to which he can share his trauma—an extension of his journal audience, which is presumably only himself. This trust in the group is exemplified when, at the end of the novel, he accepts Mario’s hug and asks him to read his journal. Before, Nick played on Caitlin’s implicit trust in him, problematically assuring her that he was the only one she could trust. Trust was a tool for control for him because that was all it could be. In the end, the idea of trust becomes a savior when he finds it in those who care about him.
