Foster discusses water in chapter 18, "If She Comes Up, It's Baptism." What happens if she doesn't? She drowns. Foster suggests that water may represent a primal fear or exploration of the possible. Drowning means different things depending on the situation and amount of choice the drowned had.He says, "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 or denouement" (161).
Foster's main argument seems to be that survival of immersion can mean a type of spiritual cleansing or a symbolic rebirth. Also consider cultural, racial, or political implications.
Work and author
Water Body
Result (drowning or emersion)
Greater significance
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
The ocean, specifically the Gulf of Mexico.
First few times in water result in feelings of freedom, calmity, and solitude for Edna. Final time in water results in Edna's suicide.
The ocean represents a freedom for Edna the likes of which she has never known; in the water, she allows herself to be reborn and, in a way, her suicide was merely her final act of taking her freedom and controlling her own fate.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
The rainstorms
Jane seems to constantly be looking out into the distance from her window while it rains. She also gets caught in a rainstorm at one point.
Her looking out the window as she longs to see the world may be a way for her to cleanse her thought and stresses as she dreams of what exists outside of her own personal comforts. Her getting caught in the storm represents a sort of "rebirth".
Foster's main argument seems to be that survival of immersion can mean a type of spiritual cleansing or a symbolic rebirth. Also consider cultural, racial, or political implications.