Baptism

When I read the passage about the rain "falling on the sea" in The City and Its Uncertain Walls, the first thing that immediately popped into my mind was baptism. The narrator said that whenever he thinks of permanence, he automatically pictures rain pouring down on the ocean, which made me think that the sea is being constantly baptized by the water from the sky. The narrator points out that the sea stays unchanged even though the rain keeps replacing the water in the ocean. This mirrors the nature of baptism, where once someone is baptized, they are permanently “purified.” Viewing this in the context of baptism, the connection between the rain and his desire for a permanent relationship with the girl becomes clearer, since both the rain scene and the emotional connection, once they become permanent, can last foreverr. What I found most intriguing, however, was the moment when the imagery of the rain falling on the sea fails him. When the narrator tried to suppress his sexual thoughts about the girl by visualizing the rain scene, it completely backfired on him. Unfortunately for him, this imagery of the rain (that should function as spiritual cleansing, just like how the rain washes away the sea’s impurities) does not affect the very desires he’s been trying to suppress. Joline