Swimming is a motif that runs throughout the book, from Anil’s triumphant days as a teenage talent to Dr. Linus Corea’s forced swims with the rebels to Lee Marvin’s watery escape from Alcatraz in Point Blank. Swimming also invokes Anil’s youth and the expectations thrust upon her, which she fled.

Early in the novel, Anil regards an old photograph of one of her swimming victories, noticing “her right arm bent up to tear off her rubber swimming cap” (11).  Anil expresses discomfort with the way that people view pictures from her swimming days, focusing more on her body than her skill. In this way, Ondaatje connects Anil’s discomfort with swimming to her discomfort with gender roles in Sri Lanka, and ultimately with the country itself. Whenever anyone mentions Anil’s swimming success, she immediately demurs, telling Dr. Perera, for instance, “The swimming was a long time ago” (16). It reminds her of her youth, when her world felt too narrow for her ambition. She worked hard to put all of that behind her.

Later, swimming represents endurance and escape. When insurgents kidnap Dr. Linus Corea and force him to become their personal doctor, for example, they push him, blindfolded, into the sea. He can either swim or drown.