Tom's Journey To Becoming Alive.

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Tom’s Journey to Becoming Alive In The Deep by Anthony Doerr, Tom is a character with a heart condition that makes him pass out when he gets overly excited, so his mother, in fear of losing her baby boy, restricts him to the house, cutting off his freedom and the outside world. Tom is forced to live within a small closet away from light, noise, and anything that could remotely put Tom in danger. Tom is pulled out of school and has his childhood ripped away from him because of his mother’s fear for his heart. Tom learns to be afraid of really living because of his mother’s extreme caution, but when Tom meets Ruby with her flaming red hair, she gives him a reason to believe he won’t just live to have a “Lifespan of sixteen. Eighteen if he’s lucky. Best if he doesn’t get excited.” (p. 183) Ruby sparks Tom’s interest, gives him hope, and truly teaches him what it is to be alive. When Tom has his first significant encounter with Ruby, he was in class, and she was giving her report about the sea. When Tom saw the full-color photographs in the book Ruby passed around during her report, his heart pounded, and he passed out. After that incident in class, his mother took him out of school completely, but Tom had those images of the sea burned into his mind. “In dreams, he sees waving sea fans and milling schools of grouper and underwater shafts of light. He sees Ruby Hornaday push open the door of his closet. She’s wearing a copper diving helmet; she leans over his cot and puts the window of her helmet an inch from his face.” (p. 186) This quote from the story proves that the images of the sea from Ruby’s book were significant to Tom because he thought of them and liked them enough to dream about them as well. Also, Ruby puts the window of her helmet an inch from Tom’s face to emphasis how Ruby was showing Tom what he was missing by abiding by his mother’s restrictions.

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