The reservoir

By Janet Frame
Historical Context of “The Reservoir”

 The short story “The Reservoir” takes place during the mid-20th because of the mention of the
epidemic of Infantile Paralysis also known as polio that broke out during the 1950s, and thousands of
children died of the disease worldwide. 
 The technological advances of this period are also evident, as the village’s water pump is replaced by
the Reservoir.

About Janet Frame (1924-2004):

 A lot of her stories have the imagery of water 
 It’s relevant that two of Frame’s sisters died in drowning accidents. She uses her writing as a way
to cope with this trauma
 She wrote in various forms – short stories, novels, poems, autobiographies
 She wrote of “fractured identities, morbidity (illness), and caustic appraisals (bitter judgements).”
 Caustic appraisals – she viewed the world around her with a lot of cynicism and sarcasm
 Her famous stories include “Owls do Cry”, “Faces in the Water”, “The Lagoon”, and “The Bath”
 Her influences include the writers like Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and the Bronte twins
Title of the story:
 ‘Reservoir’ is a French word meaning storage 
 Literally, it refers to a space in which water is held for the community 
Metaphoric Significance: It is inherently juxtaposition –Water is both life and death when referred
to in the context of the reservoir. However, this exact feature connects children to go there while
the parents fear it, the children don’t.
Importance of Reservoir:
 The reservoir itself is a good place for lovers to meet but also for childish adventure and drowning
 The excitement and thrill of visiting this forbidden place and seeing the lovers remained with the
children even after they arrived home – due to the image created by their parents, their
imagination expected worse.
 This is heightened by the certain mystery surrounding the water – was it pure or not? – which
parents were able to take advantage of
 It was also a sort of boundary between the children and the rest of the world, marking the end of
their available space for adventures, due to which it is said to be “the end of the world” 
Setting:
 It is set in an idyllic place – a nostalgic view of the New Zealand the author remembered
However, it has hidden dangers, symbolized by the sharks and infantile paralysis 
 With school off for an unprecedented period, the children had let their imagination run wild
 It has a certain authority, due to which when the father acts as its representatives, the children
immediately began to fear him and closed the pipe
Characters 
 Children  – The non-specific identities of the young humans give them universality throughout the
story and a feeling of unity as they spend their vacations together as a group. The age and gender
are unspecified except for the narrator who is a young girl. A bunch of brave kids, they resolve to
travel to the Reservoir against the commands of their parents who until their journey is a mere
 idea in their heads. The expedition becomes both an adventure and a learning experience for
them pivotal to their formative years. 
 Parents  – Similar to the children, the parents too lack names. They are authoritative people who
ask the children to be away from the Reservoir in order to protect them. However, they are prone
to rumours and news in the papers and obstruct the kids from exercising their freedom. The
viewpoints differ between the two generations where the parents represent experience and
maturity and the children represent imagination and innocence. 

Protagonist:
 children
Antagonist: 
 Fear, conformity, disease, expectations of obedience
 Parents
Climax: 
 The children arrive at the Reservoir.

Themes:
 Innocence,
 childhood experiences,
 freedom,
 generational conflicts
 natural mysticism
 Innocence:
 It is a story about innocent childhood adventures that can go dreadfully wrong. As it is narrated
from the eyes of a child, we see how children’s opinions are affected by the people around them.
Innocence reflects from their singing childish rhymes: “Inky-pinky I smell stinkie”
 Curiosity:
 The children’s attitude towards the reservoir and how they let their imaginations run wild about it 
 The excitement they have when they see couples making out
 Their excitement in regards to the world around them is conveyed in the fact that, the entire first
paragraph (the description of the setting) was a single sentence, imitating a child’s excited
rambling.
 Fear:
 The parent’s attitude towards the reservoir, which prompted the children’s initial hesitations
towards visiting it
 Adults are often more hesitant than kids due to their more developed long-term thinking
 Childish carefreeness is in contrast to this – they do not yet have the maturity to consider long-
term consequences
 However, their imagination does lead them to hyperbolize the danger of quite a few places, such
as the dock, where they emphasize its pitfalls (such as the “frightening deep places”)quite a few
times
 Thus, children created more terrifying images in their head, but, due to their supernatural nature,
and the lack of experience they had with real-world consequences, these were unable to affect
them
 For these young minds, the Reservoir becomes an object of mystery and fantasy. Undeniably, it is
a source of life as well as death due to drowning reports surfacing in the newspapers.
 Connection:
 The friendship of the children helped them overcome their fears and cast off the oppressive
shackles of their parents
 Other than a slight suggestion of adult warning, no one said that they shouldn’t go – they are
united in their struggle.
 The parents are not emotionally connected with the children.
 Childhood Experiences:
 Children mock the adult tendencies to use lingo instead of admitting their confusion while
describing the tide
 The children are fascinated by adult life, as seen by the games they play that mimicked them.
 Generational Gap:
 Adults had life and death on their mind, as seen by the fact that they refused to let their children
visit the reservoir to protect their safety. On the other hand, Children were concerned with
trivialities such as who they would sit next to and befriend with. This is seen in their defiance of
their parents to go to the reservoir.
 The parents, despite their wisdom, fail to understand that it is equally vital for the children to see
the world in its pure state and that they cannot always shield them from the ugly truths of life.
 The Reservoir is in fact, a dangerous place for children, but because the danger is not explained by
the parents, simply being forbidden makes the children curious and tempted.

 Independence/ freedom:
 Janet Frame may be saying that kids shouldn't be held back and should be free to roam and make
their own mistakes.
 She thinks life should be an adventure.
 Her parents' worries about the reservoir are quickly put to rest, which shows that Janet Frame
may not believe the scary things they say.
 The children's friendship was able to change these false ideas. This shows how important
community is, which Janet Frame knows all too well because she doesn't have any friends.
 No one tells their parents about this victory in the end. But it still had a big impact on them. They
realized that the reservoir wasn't what scared them, it was their parents.
 If their parents don't let them see the outside world, they don't have the freedom to do so and
miss out on great experiences that are important for their growth.
 Despite what they think they know, the parents don't seem to understand that it's just as
important for the kids to see the world as it is and that they can't always protect them.
 Modernization:
 Due to urbanization, children were losing the environment that was so nurturing for them.
 Diseases were also spreading faster due to urbanisation, which led to a rise in newborn paralysis
rates. Children's education was thus being impacted
 Seas were drying up, and there are signs about how modernization and globalisation effect
children.
 It may also have directly contributed to the creation of the reservoir (due to the drying up of rivers
and the resulting need for more water); it also created the need for water purification; and, finally,
it may have directly contributed to the risks and outcomes it had brought about.
  In some ways, modernisation has been portrayed in this article as corrupting innocence in
children.
 The children seem to respect nature more, not insulting it with rhymes such as “inky-pinky I smell
stinkie” despite its smell

Author’s Craft:

1) Point of View: First Person

 The first person plural ; We (children) : To brings universality of thought and experience when it
comes to perceiving the world around. 
 The first person singular; An unnamed young girl: Sometimes, the narrator switches to a single
pronoun to specify the workings of her house
 Narration with a double perspective- the children’s and that of the parents’
2) Literary Devices:

 Imagery:

The author describes the Reservoir as both beautiful and mysterious. In the first paragraph, she uses what
the children say about the place to give a good picture of it. But because they are young and innocent, it
is way off. Their childish imaginations and the parents' warnings make it even worse.
She also does a good job of writing about the places the children go. The way the seasons change from
winter to spring and summer, and when they get to the reservoir. Several other literary devices are used
to enhance imagery, such as:
Simile-
 An odd and out-of-place metaphor marks the beginning passage of the story- “rabbits eating like
modern sculpture into the hills.”  
 During their traverse towards the Reservoir, the group encounter “a jersey bull polished like
a wardrobe, burnished like copper.” 
Personification:
 “crowds of bubbles were passengers on every suddenly swift wave hurrying by”
Alliteration: 
 “The blowsy old red roses shed their petals to the regretful refrain”
 Foreshadowing:
 “…and how important it was for birds, animals and people, especially children, to show respect!”
 This passive-aggressive sentence shows that the child wants to go against what is expected of
them, which they do later.
 The boredom of Christmas represents the children’s desire to do more, foreshadowing their future
disobedience
 When the dullness continues through the summer and is described in more detail, the reader gets
the impression that the kids were more likely to act out.
 Allusions:
 Allusions to historical events and places are used to foreshadow things, such as:
 The French Revolution is used to foreshadow the children’s own revolution.
 Reference: During the holidays, the boredom and overpopulation on the beach and bathing shed
with their “tiny barred window” makes the narrator believe as if she’s living “in the French
Revolution” in all its chaos.

 The high-flow creek compels the narrator to imagine a situation of a flood similar to the one
in Ancient Egypt due to the river Nile. The flooding of the Nile is used to foreshadow the effects of
modernization.
 
 Further, the narrator draws on the great expedition by the nineteenth-century travelers Burke and
Wills who in popular belief died out of starvation. The hot weather during the school vacation
influences the narrator to relate her condition to the men. 

 There are various events the story alludes to beginning with Anzac Day which is a “national day to
mark the commemoration of Australia and New Zealand for victims of war and for recognition of
the role of their armed forces.” This thought comes to the mind of the narrator as she looks at the
modern sculpture and the only thing she knows about it is that people visit the Warrior statue on
Anzac Day.

 Exaggeration:
 Seen in the children’s hyperbolic, fantastical descriptions of the world around them
 The children over-use their parents’ terminology in order to mock them:
Example: “The creek’s going on high-flow. They must be doing something at the Reservoir.”
 Repetition:
 “there was nothing to do, there was nothing to do” ; conveying boredom
 Rhyme:
 These are mostly used to convey childish innocence: example: “inky-pinky I smell stinkie” ,
“Pound, shillings and pence, a man fell over the fence, he fell on a lady, and squashed out a baby,
pound, shillings and pence!”; Innocence to sensual knowledge
 Contrast:
 During their trek, the children realize “with dismay” that they have “suddenly lost possession of”
their creek but the excitement of the journey turns down their gloom and they grow “cheerful.” A
quick change in attitude is only expected at their age. 
 Onomatopoeia: 
 The children perceive the trees sighing and requesting them in their “hush-sh” to be quiet as if
something was sleeping and “should not be disturbed” in the Reservoir. 
 Rhetoric :
 Towards the end when the mother expresses her concern over her child’s late evening expedition,
she says “I hope you didn’t go anywhere near the Reservoir” which is a rhetorical statement.
 Repetition :
 The boredom of the vacations is highlighted in the children’s rant “there was nothing to do, there
was nothing to do.” 
 The Reservoir
Summary
"The Reservoir" is set in a mid-20th-century New Zealand town where a Reservoir has recently been
constructed. The Reservoir is located on the outside of the village, and local children, including
the anonymous narrator, are not permitted to go near it. The narrator's mother, as well as neighbours
and the parents of the other children, ban them from walking to the Reservoir because children had
drowned there.
The children, obeying their parents, explore and play in the rest of the wildness along the local gully. They
particularly enjoy the creek and consider themselves to be in tune with its moods and tides. When the
creek is flowing fast, it implies that the Reservoir is being purified of waste that flows into it.
The school year is coming to an end, and the heat makes the children's summer vacation long and
monotonous. They play games, go swimming, and gossip, but soon enough, all the youngsters are looking
forward to the start of the school year, the shade of school halls, and the new experiences that the year
will offer.
However, school does not reopen because the community is hit by an outbreak of Infantile Paralysis,
which kills children throughout the area. The pupils are compelled to complete their schoolwork by post,
despite the heat and boredom. The children play down the gully to break up the boredom. They steal
apples, observe courting couples, and make jokes about their kissing and love making.
When the kids can't discover any apples or courting couples, one of them proposes they go to the
Reservoir. The narrator accepts that all of the youngsters knew they would explore the Reservoir at some
point, but she nevertheless expresses her fear. When her friends condemn her as a coward, the narrator
reconsiders and agrees with them.
The path to the Reservoir is long and much forested. The children believe that pine trees cry and murmur,
but the communication is beyond comprehension. The narrator argues that this type of discourse, in
which the message is felt but not voiced, is the loneliest level of speaking.
The kids argue and chat as they walk. The narrator tries to imagine what the Reservoir will be like,
imagining it as a dark and dangerous place. The kids come to a bull in its pasture. Despite the fact that the
bull wears a ring in its nose, signifying that it has been tamed, the children flee since the bull appears to
be about to rush at them.
When they arrive at the Reservoir, the narrator is initially frightened by the whispering of the pine trees,
but she and her friends rapidly overcome their apprehension, disobeying a warning sign and playing
around the Reservoir. They play until they notice it is becoming dark outside. They race home, terrified of
the dark, only to discover that the sun has scarcely moved in the sky.
When they return home, the kids are unsure if they should inform their parents about their journey. The
question is answered for them when their parents remind them, as always, not to approach the Reservoir.
The narrator laughs internally at her parents for being afraid.

QUESTIONS:
 Attempt any one question.
 Strengthen your view point with references from the story.
 Word limit: 250 to 300 words
i. Discuss what the reservoir symbolises.
ii. Examine the innocence of childhood and how it is being corrupted.
iii. The reservoir is a story told from a number of different perspectives. Discuss.
iv. The reservoir tells the story of childhood innocence and the harsh truths of life. Discuss