55 pages • 1-hour read
Deep End
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Themes
Competitive Sports as a Metaphor for Personal Challenges
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual content and cursing.
Throughout Deep End, Scarlett’s relationship with college diving is a metaphor for her journey to overcome challenges in her personal life. Ever since Scarlett injured herself doing an inward dive at the NCAA championships two years before the narrative present, she’s felt incapable of succeeding in her academics or her personal relationships. As “an NCAA Division I Athlete” (7), Scarlett sees diving as an extension of herself and her personal worth. When she’s unable to perform athletically, her self-worth falters, and she has to take time off from diving to recover. Even after she’s physically healed, she struggles to reorient to the sport and regain her self-confidence. In the narrative present, she struggles to disentangle her identity from her performance as a diver:
It’s easier for me when balls fall neatly into their intended buckets. […] I used to be a straight A student athlete. Used to be in control. Used to live in pursuit of excellence. At this point, I’m just trying to avoid explosive failures. Wouldn’t it be lovely if I could manage not to constantly let down the people around me? (10, 11).
Scarlett perceives her diving struggles as evidence that she’s a failure as a person. In reality, Scarlett’s challenges in the pool expose her emotional and psychological wounds.
Scarlett’s past traumas threaten to preclude her self-confidence in the present, and her relationship with the inward dive represents this struggle. Each time she tries to do an inward dive during practice, she ends up performing an alternative dive. Her mental block on the diving board represents her attempt to compartmentalize her trauma. Because she hasn’t acknowledged how Josh and her dad have hurt her—particularly on the eve of her injury—the surrounding trauma continues to unsettle her heart and mind. During her first therapy session, she tells Sam that she’s done counseling before, but it was “[n]othing sports related. It was…family stuff. […] But that’s all solved now” (6). She avoids talking about this trauma as a way to hide from it—a defense mechanism echoed in her diving practices. She avoids talking about what really happened on the day of her injury, which keeps her from overcoming her fear of performing the dive again.
When Scarlett starts to give herself more grace in her academics and relationships, she rediscovers her love for diving. Owning her trauma by talking about it with Sam and Lukas allows her to begin processing it and experience healing. She’s able to embrace relationships and school with excitement, which echoes her ability to fall back in love with diving.
Hazelwood nuances this otherwise familiar sports romance plot by attaching deeper meaning to Scarlett’s athletic experiences. Scarlett isn’t simply attached to diving because she’s good at it; the sport metaphorically provides insight into her psyche. Her evolving regard for diving over the course of the novel echoes her personal growth journey.
Journey Toward Growth, Healing, and Self-Empowerment
Scarlett’s personal growth journey is entangled with her attempts to heal from her injury, reestablish herself as a student-athlete, and succeed in her premed classes, all while maintaining some semblance of a social life. “Because all [she has] ever wanted [is] to be on top of shit (10),” Scarlett feels like she’s floundering at the start of the novel. Her “schedule is a crossover between a Jenga tower and a shibari tutorial” (10)—a metaphor that evokes notions of balance and restriction. Scarlett is struggling in her classes, in her athletics, and in her relationships. Her grades are slipping, her dives are imperfect, and her friendships are almost nonexistent. She feels out of control, which makes her question who she is, what she wants, and if she’ll ever feel proud of herself again.
Scarlett’s arc incorporates elements unique to the college experience. Deep End is both a sports romance and a college romance novel, deriving its narrative conflict from the characters’ athletic and collegiate context. Scarlett begins the novel at a transitional point in her life—she just turned 21 and is beginning to apply to medical schools. Hazelwood positions her desperation to succeed as a symptom of self-imposed pressure to be perfect. Using subtext, the author suggests that these pressures are also societally based. As a young woman, Scarlett is expected to prove her self-worth physically, intellectually, and otherwise. If she fails to do so, she fears a bleak future where she has no autonomy over her body or life.
Scarlett’s relationships with Sam, Lukas, and Pen help her to name, confront, and overcome her insecurities on her journey toward healing and growth. At times, Scarlett worries that “therapy [is] the squillionth thing [she’s] failing” but gradually learns to trust Sam and use her as a resource in support of her personal growth (242). Their therapy sessions challenge Scarlett to excavate her interiority, “unpack” her trauma, and develop healthier coping mechanisms.
Scarlett’s relationships with Lukas and Pen similarly bolster her self-confidence. With Lukas, Scarlett not only feels seen and cherished, but she feels empowered and enlivened. Their relationship helps her overcome her lingering heartbreak over Josh and to see herself anew. With Pen, Scarlett discovers that she’s capable of showing love and giving support. She and Pen establish a reciprocal, communicative dynamic that helps Scarlett remember who she is outside of diving and school. When she learns to trust Sam, Lukas, and Pen, she learns to ask for help; and in turn, she begins to heal. The novel uses Scarlett’s character arc to illustrate how growth, healing, and self-empowerment are unique to each individual, occur gradually over time, and are fueled by strong, loving relationships.
Exploration of BDSM Within Consensual Relationships
Deep End explores the possibilities of healthy sexual exploration in the context of Scarlett and Lukas’s relationship and mutual interest in the sexual practice of BDSM: “a term used to describe sex that involves dominance, submission, and control. The practice typically involves one partner taking on a more dominant role during sex, while the other is more submissive” (“What Is BDSM Sex?” WebMD). In the context of Scarlett and Lukas’s relationship, Scarlett assumes the submissive role and Lukas assumes the dominant role, as per their preferences. Together, they toy with notions of order, control, and obedience to discover themselves as more comprehensive sexual beings.
Through Scarlett and Lukas’s sexual journey together, Hazelwood underscores the importance of trust, honesty, and communication in BDSM relationships. She does so by prioritizing scenes involving dialogue, consent, and openness. For example, before Scarlett and Lukas agree to start having sex, they fill out lists of their fantasies. The lists name all the sexual positions or dynamics they feel most comfortable with. They exchange these lists and discuss them—in one scene Scarlett tells Lukas that she wants to give him control, but she’s uncomfortable with him calling her degrading names and would prefer that he praise her for doing well. In other scenes, they exchange their STI screening results and talk about contraception. Such dialogues foster intimacy and trust between the characters and illustrate ways for sexual partners to act out their sexual fantasies in safe, consensual contexts.
Hazelwood also balances the novel’s sex scenes with other emotionally intimate scenes between Scarlett and Lukas. Although their relationship begins as a sexual exchange, the two develop a deep connection outside of the bedroom. The sub/dom dynamics that govern their BDSM explorations do not govern their encounters in the lab, pool, library, or elsewhere. Scarlett notes that their sexual relationship is comprised of “scenes, that’s what people call [them]”—the “[p]ockets of time in which power is exchanged. They have a beginning and an end. They can be broken with safe words. They can be structured and formalized as much as their participants like” (162). When Scarlett and Lukas are having sex, they understand that they’re consenting parties in a “scene.” When they’re not having sex, they understand that they’re two autonomous individuals and that their “dom” and “sub” roles don’t extend into other arenas. Hazelwood emphasizes that healthy BDSM relationships are founded on mutual respect. Scarlett and Lukas’s dynamic works and grows into love because they take care of each other inside and outside the context of sex. They don’t overstep the bounds of their sexual arrangement, which fosters faith in one another.
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