The Deep End of the Ocean is a novel by Jacquelyn Mitchtard dealing with themes of family and multiculturalism. Beth Cappadora's son Ben is kidnapped and she experiences a mental breakdown. Years later, a boy comes to the door asking to mow her lawn and, gradually, Beth discovers that the boy Ben, who ended up in a Greek home nearby after his kidnapper was committed to a mental asylum. The book recounts Ben's conflicts with his mother and brother and his struggle to reintegrate with his birth family.
Aside from ethnicity, there is an underlined theme in the story about women's empowerment as Beth awakens from her nine-year depression to argue with Pat about how to deal with Ben's dual-ethnic and family identity. Once Beth finds Ben she also finds her own inner strength, and argues with Pat about the terms that Ben must obey in order to become integrated into the family. Pat wants Ben to abandon what he thought was his name, ethnic identity, and his father. Beth wants her son to be happy and feels that forcing Ben to abandon the past nine years of his life will only drive him away, both physically and emotionally.
Vincent sees the presence of Ben as a symbol of his own guilt at allowing his younger brother to be kidnapped, and a symbol of the anger that he has built up over the past nine years in living with parents that were too caught up in their grief to give him the love and attention that he needed. His younger sister seems the most well-adjusted of the children, but that is because she was too young to remember Ben. Vincent and Pat filled in the role as parents when Beth was trapped in her depression.
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