Chapter 18- If She Comes Up, It’s Baptism
In the Bible, baptism is a symbol of the Christian’s faith. By submerging yourself in water, and then coming back up, you are mimicking Jesus’s burial and resurrection and saying that you’ve committed to being a Christian, that you’ve been changed: you had put to death your old self and were now a new creation. Like baptism in the Bible, water carries a lot of symbolic weight in literature. Rain can be used to represent cleansing and restoration, but so can drowning. When a character goes under water but comes back up, like baptism, usually it means the character has been changed. It can also be a sign of a point-of-no-return, just like baptism was a life-long commitment.
In the Lord of the Rings, Frodo sneaks away from the indecisive Fellowship. They cannot decide what their next course of action should be, so Frodo leaves alone to continue his mission. Sam notices this and goes after Frodo, who is already leaving in a boat. Sam tries to go out to him, but he can’t swim, and he nearly drowns. Frodo dives in and saves him. When they both come up, they are changed. The have been transformed, or baptized. Frodo realizes that he was foolish to think that he could’ve gone on alone. They both understand that being out there in that boat, headed downstream means that they have made the decision to finish their mission together, and that there is no going back now. Yet they look bravely ahead and press forward; a bond forms between them.
Another example of symbolic baptism is in Divergent when the protagonist Tris is trapped inside of a glass box that is slowly filling with water. Try as she might, she cannot break the box or find any way to escape. Tris, drowning, watches as her friends stand outside observing, making no efforts to rescue her. In fact, they laugh at her and mock her. She starts to panic, but then she realizes, or remembers, that it isn’t real. She is in a simulation, a medically induced hallucination designed for her initiation into the Dauntless faction. At that moment of realization, she is able to control the simulation and break the glass box. This is a baptism of sorts because it is a turning point, both for her as a character, and for the plot. She realizes that she, unlike the other initiates is aware when she is in a simulation and has the ability to control and manipulate it. Rather than suppress this skill like everyone advises her to, she decides to use it to excel in initiation, and later, rebel. So she transforms from a shy, frightened Abnegation transfer to a strong, rebellious Divergent, all because of her moment of realization while she was drowning.
Harry Potter also has several instances of Baptism symbolism. In book 6 while helping Dumbledore retrieve a horcrux, Harry nearly drowns in a cave. He was trying to get water from an underwater lake for Dumbledore, but an undead dragged him under. Hundreds of undead swarm him, pulling him deeper, drowning him. When he resurfaces (after Dumbledore frightens them away with fire), it is Harry’s moment of realization that what they are facing is bigger than he thought, he is more important than he thought, and it really is up to him to track down the rest of the horcruxes and destroy Voldemort. This moment of realization is like a rebirth: he makes the decision to step up to the role he’s been called to, even though he is scared and doesn’t want to. This theory of baptismal symbolism is strengthened by the heavy christian parallels seen in this entire series as I talked about a little in my previous post. This article here about biblical symbolism in Harry Potter points out many of the links between Harry Potter and Jesus Christ, making it more likely that his near-death drowning experience was in fact an image of baptism. Later in book 7, when trying to retrieve the sword of Gryffindor from a frozen pond, the locket horcrux nearly strangles him. Then Ron, who had abandoned them months before, shows up, saves Harry, gets the sword from the bottom of the pond, and, after much difficulty, destroys the locket. This is a moment of change for both of them: Harry realizes how much he missed Ron and how much they needed Ron to help them. Ron realizes that they need each other, and that he was foolish for running away. They both forgive each other.
In all of these examples, a common theme of almost drowning but being rescued, whether that be by a friend or by a realization, is present. Each time, the character experiencing the drowning, and the character who rescued this person undergo a dramatic change, just like baptism.
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