37 pages • 1 hour read
Jeff KinneyThe Deep End
Fiction | Graphic Novel/Book | Middle Grade | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Christianity
Christianity is a motif that Kinney weaves through Greg’s narrative. It represents comfort, hope, strength, and patience. It is something he refers to regularly while considering his life or the circumstances that create a series of events. While staying in his grandmother’s basement with his family, Greg feels isolated and stir-crazy, and he knows the rest of his family does too. He thinks about a children’s book that Manny has, which tells the story of Noah’s Ark, and Greg relates this to his own life: “Whenever I feel sorry for myself living in Gramma’s basement with my family, I think about Noah and it makes me feel a little better” (12). He is inspired by Noah’s patience and strength and tries to embody those characteristics. Biblical examples are a rare time in the book (and series) when Greg gains personal insight and grows in maturity. The early reference to Noah prefigures the natural disaster at the book’s climax and the narrative lesson on resilience, family, and providence, which is at the heart of the story.
The book’s treatment of Christianity is often humorous. Greg notes his belief that “God has a sense of humor” (184), and the story often uses Christianity as a way to satirize Greg’s worldview as a young boy. He jokes about how humans were given big brains but he would have rather had quills instead, and comments on how silly it was for Adam and Eve to choose a piece of fruit over paradise because he feels a twinkie would have been a fairer trade. Greg’s mother wants the family to have fun together before her kids grow up, but Greg points out that it might take “a miracle” for that to happen. The narrative suggests that this miracle is provided, in the form of a lightning storm, a typical symbol of God’s power. The crisis that ensues could be read as a divine intervention: a humorous version of righteous punishment and also a lesson to the family to count their blessings. Campers’ Eden, which claimed to be a paradise, turned out to be one unexpectedly.
Manny’s ability to steer the camper and rescue his family in a variety of ways is a tongue-in-check allusion to the Christ child. It creates a pattern of magical events, miracles in Christian terms, which the family seems to view as unremarkable. This adds to the absurdist satire at the center of the work’s zany humor.
Imagination
Imagination is a key motif in the book and the form that it takes as a graphic novel. Greg’s visual imagination is what inspires his illustrations, emphasizes and intensifies his observations, and illuminates his sense of humor and creativity. As a force in the novel, it often balances his cultivated façade of teen-boy cynicism. Greg’s drawings decorate every page of his diary, and some include fantastical depictions such as living with squirrels or the existence of a massive sea dragon within the lake. These fantastical images are often expressive of Greg’s subconscious fears and desires, allowing the narrative to express these to the reader while keeping them hidden from Greg’s own self-awareness. Greg’s imagination can sometimes cause him anxiety. Handling Fear and Anxiety is difficult for Greg largely because his imagination starts inventing worst-case scenarios like being lost forever. Thinking about this too hard, Greg ends up panicking and starts trying to live off the land within minutes of becoming lost. Greg’s imagination also relates to Managing Expectations in that Greg’s expectations of the vacation and of each place the family visits are much higher than what reality can deliver, such as when he imagines parasailing over the mountains with his family. For the most part, though, Greg’s imagination is portrayed as a strength. It helps him process the challenges of everyday living and growing up. It is expressive of the vulnerable, childlike part of his character that he often seeks to hide and helps him to maintain a sense of hope and intrigue in a world that often disappoints or frightens him.
Water
Water is a key symbol in The Deep End, as made explicit by the title’s metaphor, several key plot points, and the state of Greg’s family before and during their summer vacation. The narrative sets up a pattern of watery images to explore the comforts and dangers of water as a resource, and the resonances of natural and modern lifestyles. Greg opens the story of this vacation by explaining that he is worried about his family going “off the deep end” (1), an expression that signifies an unwise or headlong course of action. Water features continually in the story’s pattern of mishaps: the Heffleys accidentally swim in a piranha hatchery, are attacked by teenagers with watermelons while going for a canoe ride, Greg is taken down the river without his bathing suit, and the boys use dirty super-soakers in their game. Even the skunk plotline revolves around forms of water: the spray and the necessity of washing it off. Much of the practical tensions of the story revolve around the comforts and discomforts of ablutions, such as the septic tank, showers, and laundry, revealing the reliance of humans on modern conveniences, and Greg’s assumption of these comforts as an American middle-class boy. Both of the story’s key events also take place surrounding water, including the moment that Greg dives into the deep end of the pool at the pool party in an attempt to avoid the camp director and teenagers (as illustrated on the book’s cover). The second key event takes place when the family attempts to escape by driving across the river and Manny ends up turning the camper into a makeshift bridge. This climactic scene is illustrated across two pages, and shows the beauty and majesty of the natural environment that the Heffleys have been too stressed out and preoccupied to enjoy. The conclusion shows them able to spend the last couple days of their vacation swimming, fishing, and Appreciating Family.
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By Jeff Kinney
