What if Taoyu jumped one last time?
A reimagining of the ending of "Vaulting the Sea" by Xuan Juliana Wang
But now Taoyu is just another bad diver. His training was never enough. His friendship was never enough. Taoyu’s perverted mind just wanted more. More than friends.
Now they are less than friends. Less than acquaintances. Hai will probably never to to Taoyu again. And it’s all Taoyu’s fault. His distracting from his life, from diving. His fault for leaving his mother to die. His fault for leaving his team to lose. His team lost gold because Hai and Taoyu’s jump was anything but in sync.
Taoyu was kicked off the team. There was no question about it. Everyone knew Taoyu failed. He had no one to blame but himself.
On his way back home. Not to his dorm. Not the training center. Home. He has to deal with his father. “How will that go?” Taoyu wonders.
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My reimagining of the ending of Vaulting the Sea by Xuan Juliana Wang explores a “What if” we discussed in class. Namely, what would have happened if Taoyu had jumped. In class we discussed the implications and consequences of Taoyu’s decision not to jump. Because Taoyu does not jump, he was able to live by himself and have full autonomy over his own life. But in my reimagining, Taoyu does decide to jump, but his relationships with Hai and his swim team and coaches are still destroyed.
This reimagining focuses on Taoyu’s personal motivations and consequences more than what happens to Hai and the team. One large argument that Taoyu should have jumped takes Hai’s point of view into account. But here, I focus on Taoyu himself. By not jumping, Taoyu is taking control of his life. He is not doing what he has been told to do. The decision to control his own life leads to Taoyu to “become a completely new person” (Wang 129). After the games, Taoyu buys and lives in “a two bedroom apartment with an ocean view” in a new city after he changed “his name to that of the first cabdriver he had” (Wang 129). With the independence and confidence from his decision not to jump, Taoyu takes puts his old, unindependant life behind him and he leaves the team on his own terms.
However, in my reimagining, Taoyu decides to jump and does not gain the autonomy as he does in the original story. Although Taoyu does jump, it did not make sense to me that Taoyu would perform well. Taoyu is distracted and out of sync with Hai as Taoyu realizes just before the final jump. Taoyu realizes “they weren’t really the same at all, no matter the beat of their hearts” (Wang 128). Because the story places so much emphasis on the importance of synchronicity with one’s diving partner, Taoyu and Hai’s disconnect suggests they would not perform well. Due to his poor performance, and possibly future failures (although my retelling was too short to consider them), Taoyu leaves the team and considers himself a failure.
My goal of this retelling was to flesh out the “what if” discussed in class and compare the implications and consequences of each choice. To jump or not to jump.
(side note - this is not the only way not jumping might have turned out for Taoyu)
-Kai
The ending you chose to write is a sad truth in a sense that he probably would have messed up his dive because of his emotions. This analysis makes me think even more about the morality of Taoyu's decision in the end. I think it's interesting in a good way that you chose this outcome after Taoyu decided to jump instead of prosperity and a good life. It goes to show that maybe Taoyu's actual decision from the real story was right.
ReplyDeleteI like this ending a lot! It very clearly shows the emotions of Taoyu in conflict with his desire for acceptance and conformity. Even in the face of that, his decision to jump is shown in a deservingly harsh tone, for abondoning what could have been, had he only had the confidence to not jump. It leaves the story with a much more melancholy ending, but I don't think that's a bad thing. Overall, this is a very good alternative ending.
ReplyDeleteI really liked how you portrayed Taoyu's inner conflict with his emotions in your new ending. As you mentioned in your blog post there are a lot of what-if scenarios that may have happened, but the most likely reality is that even if he had jumped due to his emotions it would not have been good I feel is a very true point we did not discuss in class. Overall, I really liked your post and I think everything you wrote about showed how good your alternative ending is as Taoyu struggled with his emotions.
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