Chps. 11 & 12

          The sentence that I selected from chapter eleven was "Piedmont could fire me, bawl me out, abuse me, and put it on my record that I was an incorrigible son of a bitch, and make sure I never taught in South Carolina again, or cut off my teacher's pension" (p227).  I chose this line because in this chapter Conroy is fighting to keep his job.  Doctor Piedmont wants him fired, and willing to use every dirty trick in the book in order to make that happen.  But, Conroy is no longer afraid of what Piedmont will do because he knows that Piedmont is wrong in his actions.  Even though Conroy loses his battle with Piedmont, and loses his job on the island he comes to the realization that there is no real reason to be afraid of Piedmont that he is just a little man trying to maintain power in a changing world.  The sentence that I selected from chapter twelve was "I wanted to tell them about the river that was rising quickly, flooding the marshes and threatening the dry land" (p256).  In this line Conroy was discussing how the world is changing and how people like Doctor Piedmont and Bennington were a dying breed.  People like Piedmont and Bennington did not want things to change, and they were doing their best to make sure things stayed the same.  But, even though they got Conroy fired from the island, they could not stop the changes that had already begun to take place.  I liked how the book ended by discussing the changes that started taking place, even though they were just small changes in some ways, they were still changes that made a difference.




Conroy, P. (1972). The Water is Wide. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.