Water

Water figures prominently in Freewill. Here's a little round-up for you:

• We find out that Will's father was driving with his stepmother and "ran off road into water," which led to both of their deaths. 
• The kids who commit suicide are found drowned in the water (239). 
• Will tell us that he has "always loved the beach, moving waters most of all" (481), and the coming and going of the tide. 
• After hiding out in his bedroom for three days, Angela coaxes Will into taking a shower (715), which for him is like being reborn. 
• In the end, Will goes for a swim and realizes his own worth, only to emerge from the water recommitted to his life.

Noticing any patterns in there, Shmoopers? If you're thinking that water in this book is all about life and death, well, then pat yourself on the back because you are totally right. But let's dig a little deeper.

As the book opens, Will acts like a fish out of water. He's in a school he doesn't want to be in, living with grandparents he doesn't want to be living with, and generally filled with resistance to the life he's leading. By the end, however, Will emerges from the ocean a new man. Like, literally: He goes for a swim and has all kinds of epiphanies about his power and self-worth and how loveable he is (more on this in the "Characters" section). In other words, Will goes from a state of being checked out—a.k.a. kind of dead—in his life, to being reborn into it.

And that rebirth? It happens in water. It can be seen as a sort of baptism, then, an immersion in water that cleanses him and positions him in his life anew. And this is all the more fitting because in all the time Will feels lost in the pain of his parents' death (and remember: they died in water), water is the place he goes to for solace and to think. He feels at home at the shore, not in the house he shares with his grandparents. Water, then, despite its associations with death, stands as a beacon of hope for Will—until the day he dives in and finds his footing again.