Chapter 18:Baptism

Foster's Ideas

“It’s a little like Tolstoy says at the beginning of Anna Karenina about families: All happy families are the same, but every unhappy one has its own story. The rebirths/baptisms have a lot of common threads, but every drowning is serving its own purpose: character revelation, thematic development of violence or failure or guilt, plot complication and denouement.” (pg 161)

This quote says a lot about this chapter and how Foster interprets a reader’s action when it comes to drowning versus baptism. He makes it clear that although the only difference between baptism and drowning is whether or not “she comes up” the intentions behind the actions are far from alike.

In this chapter he introduces baptism as something beyond the religious realm and gives a whole new perspective of the meaning of water in literature. Even if character steps in a puddle of water it can be symbolic for something. Writers often times use water as a symbol of cleansing the spirit or body or as a way for the character to start life anew: hence rebirth or baptism. While stepping in a puddle may not be as life altering as almost drowning it represents a stepping stone to the ultimate change, like in the novel Song of Solomon.

In this chapter though, he doesn’t focus on baptism as much as he does death and drowning. Sometimes the unpleasant events that take place in a story play a more significant role than the joyous ones. Drowning can signify the ending of a conflict, the beginning of internal conflict, self inflicted from guilt, or other things but the action is not as significant as the response to the action. That’s why he phrased the quote the way he did when you think of rebirth you may think of a new life, new beginning, hope, desire, all generally similar ideas, but when you think of drowning there are many scenarios that may change your opinions. While rebirth is change for the better drowning could be: a good thing, a bad thing, an accident, the best thing, an accidental thing, or an action done on purpose. Just like “unhappy families”, drowning raises many questions and sometimes the reason or answer to the problem is uncertain.

Foster tries to prove to the reader that sometimes the most significant events are the ones we can’t explain, the ones that need no explanation. Dysfunctional families are more complex than functional ones just as drowning is more inexplicable than baptism.