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    A Study Guide for Mary Swan's "The Deep"
    A Study Guide for Mary Swan's "The Deep"
    A Study Guide for Mary Swan's "The Deep"
    Ebook43 pages33 minutes

    A Study Guide for Mary Swan's "The Deep"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Mary Swan's "The Deep," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateJul 15, 2016
    ISBN9781535836166
    A Study Guide for Mary Swan's "The Deep"

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      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Mary Swan's "The Deep" - Gale

      1

      The Deep

      Mary Swan

      2000

      Introduction

      The Deep, a novella by Canadian writer Mary Swan, was first published in the Canadian literary journal The Malahat Review in 2000. This story won the 2001 O. Henry Award for short fiction. The Deep has been republished in several books, including a collection of Swan's short fiction, The Deep and Other Stories (2004).

      The Deep is a haunting tale about the life and death of twin sisters during World War I. The story is a complex weave of historical themes such as women's involvement in the war effort and more universal themes such as dysfunctional families. This story also explores the unique bond between identical twins. Swan has been writing and publishing short stories in the United States and Canada since the 1980s; The Deep is her most widely read and best-received work as of 2005.

      Author Biography

      Mary Swan is a very private person, and not much is known about her life. It is known that she graduated from York University and the University of Guelph, both in Ontario, Canada. As of 2005, she lives in Guelph, which is near Toronto, with her husband and daughter. She works at the University of Guelph library. Swan has traveled all over Europe.

      As of 2005 Swan had been writing for over twenty years, ten of which were spent sporadically working on The Deep. Her short stories have been published in numerous literary magazines, including The Malahat Review, Harpers, and the Ontario Review. Her work has also been anthologized in Emergent Voices, Best Canadian Stories 92, and Coming Attractions.

      Swan came to popular attention when her short story The Deep won the 2001 O. Henry Award. The Deep was published as a novella chapbook in 2002 and then in a collection of Swan's short stories, The Deep and Other Stories, in 2004. Swan's other volume of short stories, Emma's Hands, was published by Porcupine Press in 2003.

      Plot Summary

      After

      The Deep begins with the description of a room with tall windows and gauzy curtains. This first section is short, ending with a memory of a story about a queen's funeral.

      How to Begin

      An unnamed narrator describes what it is like to wake up uncertain of who and where one is. While the narrator is asleep, it may be 1918 France.

      Survival Suit

      The unnamed narrators, twins, are preparing to leave on a journey requiring camp equipment and vaccinations. They have lunch with Miss Reilly, who gives them each a pen so they will write her letters. The twins spend the next day with their father. He is terrified about their boat passage and insists on buying them survival suits. The twins are reminded of their doll Ophelia whom they tried unsuccessfully to float in a stream.

      The Castle

      The

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