Near the novel’s conclusion, Caden descends to the bottom of Challenger Deep The Challenger Deep is the deepest known point in the Earth's seabed hydrosphere, with a depth of 10,898 to 10,928 m by direct measurement from submersibles and slightly more by sonar bathymetry. It is located in the Pacific Ocean, at the southern end of the Mariana Trench near the … before beginning his ascent and recovery. He is discharged to his parents at the end of the novel, aware that he is now recovering but that the Captain will always be in the periphery of his mind, trying to coax him back onto the ship.Challenger Deep
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Near the novel’s conclusion, Caden descends to the bottom of Challenger Deep before beginning his ascent and recovery. He is discharged to his parents at the end of the novel, aware that he is now recovering but that the Captain will always be in the periphery of his mind, trying to coax him back onto the ship.
Challenger Deep Summary & Study Guide Description. “Challenger Deep” is a young adult novel by Neal Shusterman that follows 15-year-old Caden Bosch as he descends into mental illness, and recovers. Caden understands that there are two worlds – one that is real, and one that is real in his mind.
The Captain tells Caden that there is no telling how deep the Trench, or Caden’s illness, actually may go. The Captain of the expedition is accompanied by a security parrot, a mental mirror for Dr. Poirot. It is Dr. Poirot who comes to treat Caden at Seaview.
Over the past several months, Caden has slowly lost his grip on reality, unable to focus on anything, constantly needing to walk, believing a kid at school wants to kill him, and being visited by a pirate Captain.
Caden slowly drifts away from friends and family and deeper into his mind, until his parents admit him to a mental hospital for further evaluation and treatment. Shusterman beautifully deploys dual narratives that become increasingly intertwined in this remarkable story.
Near the novel's conclusion, Caden descends to the bottom of Challenger Deep before beginning his ascent and recovery. He is discharged to his parents at the end of the novel, aware that he is now recovering but that the Captain will always be in the periphery of his mind, trying to coax him back onto the ship.
Neal Shusterman uses mental illness as a means to discuss truth and reality in his book Challenger Deep. The focus of the novel consists of Caden's struggles with mental illness, but enough information is given so that readers are aware of the struggles of others struggling with mental illness as well.
Rose The captain was the old man on the streets of New York wearing the cereal box on his head. To Caden, he represents the temptation and the pull into madness.
The pirate is revealed to represent his mental illness while the parrot represents his therapist, and the two incessantly war with one another both in the outside world and on the ship. Caden never knows who to believe or which side to take, which makes his journey to healing much more difficult.
The first and only time humans descended into the Challenger Deep was more than 50 years ago. In 1960, Jacques Piccard and Navy Lt. Don Walsh reached this goal in a U.S. Navy submersible, a bathyscaphe called the Trieste.
HalThere is the navigator, Hal, who obsessively seeks to find patterns in maps and who serves as Caden's roommate at the hospital; there is the beautiful but distant Callie who appears on ship as the wooden maiden; and there is Carlyle, the group therapist who appears on the ship as the deck hand.
The Ship. The ship represents the hospital. The characters on board only have counterpoints in the hospital, not in the outside world; this is why Mackenzie, Max, Shelby, and Caden's parents do not appear there.
Challenger Deep, a 2015 novel by Neal Shusterman, offers an account of mental illness as experienced by a teenage boy. Shusterman’s son Brendan was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder at age 16. His experience with the illness influenced Neal to write Challenger Deep. Brendan’s drawings appear throughout the book as Caden’s artwork. The book garnered the 2015 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.
Caden becomes convinced that someone at school wants to kill him. The idea preoccupies him to the point that his parents intervene and take him to the Seaview Memorial Hospital for treatment. The book unfolds in nonlinear fashion, with Caden alternating between two realities.
He is a talented artist who attends a public high school. He suffers from a growing anxiety that compounds with the addition of auditory and visual hallucinations. His parents are concerned about his well-being, and Caden suspects that they are not his parents at all, but impostors who are wearing masks.
Near the novel’s conclusion, Caden descends to the bottom of Challenger Deep before beginning his ascent and recovery. He is discharged to his parents at the end of the novel, aware that he is now recovering but that the Captain will always be in the periphery of his mind, trying to coax him back onto the ship.
A teenage girl named Callie becomes Caden friend and confidante. On the ship, she appears as the figurehead on the front of the ship, Calliope.
Challenger Deep is a fascinating exploration of the real and imagined worlds of Caden, a teenager facing severe mental illness. As he recovers, the reader follows his journey in both worlds. These discussion questions can help you guide students on their own journey of understanding the novel's characters, plot, and symbolism.
Caden is a complex character that ultimately lives in two parallel universes--the one in his mind and the one that is real. How does his shift to the imagined world begin? How does it progress? How does it eventually come to an end?
The Captain tells Caden that there is no telling how deep the Trench, or Caden’s illness, actually may go. The Captain of the expedition is accompanied by a security parrot, a mental mirror for Dr. Poirot. It is Dr. Poirot who comes to treat Caden at Seaview.
This Study Guide consists of approximately 43 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Challenger Deep.
Callie, with whom Caden has grown close, is released from the hospital. So much change causes Caden to reel mentally, during which time he descends to the bottom of the Marianas Trench. There, he discovers candy treasure, and recalls a memory of a homeless man during a visit to New York.
The Captain forms the backbone of the illness for Caden, in which a pirate-like world is created wherein the Captain seeks to explore Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the Marianas Trench, the deepest area in the world. The Captain says there is no telling how deep it goes.
Caden is declared sound of mind and released to his parents and sister to return home. Caden knows that he has been treated, but may not actually be cured. He settles back down into his life as much as he can, knowing he has lost a serious part of his fifteenth year that he can never have back.
Caden speculates that if he’d been born in another century, he would have been viewed as a shaman, or a prophet. His prognosis is better, given current technology, but he thinks he would prefer to be a prophet than a mentally ill kid.
Caden tells the therapy group that he does not blame God for what has happened to any of them. Instead, he says God “gives us courage to deal” (207). Then he says that God hates the people who still can’t deal with problems.