Swimming Away by Clare Reddaway

Swimming Away

Losing someone close is overwhelming. Along with the death of a person, comes the death of precious memories, and feeling incomplete and unexpressed emotions. The unexpected loss of someone you love, calls for true courage. Many people might shrink from the unexpected experience, they would benefit by remaining open to it. In our society, we are often told “get over it” which is the worst advice. Find the meaning in it through appreciating that fact, that you have loved ones that you care for. Consider that being present at the end of someone’s life is a sacred honor, a privilege and a gift. Many bereaved people experience feelings of depression, following the death of someone close. Life can feel it no longer holds any meaning.

   The short story Swimming Away by Clare Reddaway is about a woman in sorrow, who is having a flashback from a summer day. Her daughter Rosie went out to far in the ocean, and the father was trying to tell the mother from the cliff. The mother saved Rosie from drowning, but the father felt from the cliff and died.

   The setting in the short story is important, as it creates a contrast. The short story takes place at the beach in a summer day. The setting alternates between past and present, and the story begins in the present, when the mother is sitting on the beach alone. In the past when the family arrives happily to the beach, we are told that “…topped by white horses whipped up by a summer breeze, but they are clear and clean…”, therefore the weather is bright. In the present, we are told that “She looks out over the sea. It is pewter, it is lead. The waves are bloated and sullen.”. The weather has turned from shiny to heavy and dark, simultaneously that the mood has turned from delighted to sorrow and sadness. The action takes place at the beach, and the story end at the same beach, when the mother spread the ash where the father died. At the end, we are told that “…waves take away her love” therefor he is swimming away from his family. Happiness can suddenly be substituted by sorrow.

 The mother is going through a difficult time. We are told that she is hurting herself, in the present by pressing a stone under the nail “The fingernail on the middle finger of her left hand jangles with pain as a flint drives under the nail. Pleased, she presses down on the stone. A drop of blood falls…”. In the bible David used pebbles to kill Goliath. As Goliath moved in for the kill, David reached into his bag and slung one of his stones at Goliath’s head and Goliath died. The father is dead because of the pebbles “…head broken like a duck’s egg.” when he fell from the cliff, “The kind of pebble David used to kill Goliath”. She feels guilty for not looking after Rosie, and there by indirectly being the reason of his dead. The structure is not chronological, it alternates between past and present. The star symbol after each paragraph, is a symbol for alternates between past and present. The main character is the mother. It is primarily her side of the story but we are also told Rosie’s side of the story. The child Rosie, is the only name we are told, we are not told the mother’s- and the father’s name. We know she is a child, because of her colloquial language “D’you think…”, and she similes herself with a mermaid that she believes exist, “I was a mermaid, Mum, swimming like a mermaid!”. The story is beginning and ending with the mother’s perspective. It is only her thoughts and action we are told in the present, therefore she is the main character. Although everyone reacts differently when someone close dies, we each go through a series of bereavement.