The Theme Of Challenger Deep

Challenger Deep: When two realities collide into the perception of one

The thrilling and inspiring story of Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman explains the perception of reality through the story of a young teenage boy named Caden Bosch. Shusterman suggests that Caden suffers from a severely growing anxiety that combines with visual hallucinations, illustrating his perceptions of reality and how they strongly connect to his fantasy. Throughout the story, Shusterman provides a variety of symbols and motifs, including the ship, the abyssal serpent, and Skye’s puzzle piece, to allegorize and suggest Caden's perception of reality, which alters from how we view these experiences as “standard” functioning humans. Shusterman begins

This is evident when the crew on the ship only have counterparts to the other patients in Caden’s surroundings. In his other life, he is an average teenage boy with a mother, father, and brother; he attends school and occasionally visits his two friends, Max and Shelby. As the novel progresses, the reader is provided hints that Caden’s experiences on the ship foreshadow his perception of his time in the hospital. While he is undergoing heavy medication and unaware of being hospitalized, Caden thinks, "You know you can make the pirate ship as real as anything else, because there's no difference anymore between thought and reality” (Shusterman, 75). Caden’s unique perception of the ship’s crew parallels Caden's hospital experience. For instance, throughout the story, Caden constantly describes the ship's unique features, such as many unfamiliar levels on the ship (referring to the physical aspect of the hospital). The Captain, who is a symbol of Caden's mental illness, pilots the ship of Caden’s illness and mainly influences Caden’s decisions by constantly reminding him that everyone is scheming against him, discouraging Caden from any potential hope of escaping the ship. Towards the end of the story, Shusterman reveals to the readers that Caden creates the

The Captain describes the abyssal serpent to Caden as a demon that will never stop following Caden. Nearing the story's conclusion, Caden is in a final conflict with the abyssal serpent, in which he witnesses a scarecrow wearing his family's clothes as the abyssal serpent surrounds it. Caden confronts the abyssal serpent: “It speaks in me in feelings, and it projects into me hopelessness of such immense weight, it could crush the very spirit of God” (Shusterman, 296). The medication is slowly bringing him back to reality, and he is showing signs of improvement. The abyssal serpent is becoming more aware of Caden’s progress which threatens Caden to keep him forever. The scarecrow wearing his family's clothes allows Caden to reflect on how much his mental illness has impacted his family and how much they want to help him but are generally helpless to do so. The scarecrow allows him to understand his surroundings, and he is not the only one affected by his condition. For instance, throughout the story, Caden cannot seem to voice the powerful thoughts in his head and instead prefers to sketch them out on a piece of paper of his perception of reality as a desire that “What we perceive as art, the universe perceives as directions”