A Literary Analysis of Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Deep End

By: Alfred Ponder, III

The protagonist wanted to make a wise decision and end the trip, but his father was determined to actually go camping on the trip. His family found a nice campsite and decided to stay there. The intelligent protagonist brought pots and pans to scare off bears. His family did not appreciate his special brand of genius. The protagonist used his incredible sense to find his family again. His caring brother told him that he had a tick on his back and showed him that he took a picture. However, it was just a friendly prank and the picture was something that his brother found on the Internet.

Their sewage tank had a terrible smell because they did not empty it out. He then thought ahead and tried to get his family to not use the RV bathroom. His informative brother let him know that the man who invented the flushing toilet was Thomas Crapper. He then questioned this. After this, he hoped that the man made a lot of money off the toilets. After this, he said that he was glad that a body function was not named after him.

Meanwhile, while our protagonist was asking himself this philosophical question, his dad was cooking beef stew over a fire. He was going to add baked beans too, but the protagonists’ older brother accidentally left the beans next to the fire. The beans exploded all over the place. After the rather unorthodox dinner, they tied a black bag high up in a random tree.

At the campfire, the protagonist’s mom decided to start singing “John Jacob Jingleheimer Scmidt” for unknown reasons. None of the other characters decided to join in. Then, the protagonist’s dad brought out a giant bag of marshmallows. He then told a creepy camp story about a scary dog and a weird creature. Then, out of nowhere, a weird howl happened from the woods. Then, the protagonist used his incredible deductive abilities to find out that it was just his brother and dad pranking him.

The joke backfired, because the protagonist’s younger brother decided to throw his flaming marshmallow at his dad’s knee because he was scared. Luckily, the protagonist’s intelligent older brother decided to get the fire-extinguisher. Then, his family heard a bear. Luckily, the protagonist’s intelligent younger brother decided to grab a flare gun and shoot it in the sky when the bear started to try to attack the family. This scared the bear away, but the ranger said that it was reckless to shoot the flare off and evicted them off the campsite.

The protagonist’s mother said that they needed to go to a place with people and suggested an RV park. She found a place called Campers’ Eden. The protagonist then extends his discussion of advanced biblical theology and philosophy. Then, he saw that the Campers’ Eden place lived up to its name at first glance. It had a recreation room, an equestrian footwear pit, and a pristine body of water with canoes and other methods of aqueous transportation. There was also a shower.

When the narrator’s family arrived, the only spots were in the economy section which was very far down from the entrance. After they parked, the protagonist’s mom unloaded the camping equipment and chairs. The protagonist’s dad was also trying to flush the sewage tank. The intelligent protagonist decided to leave their camper and explore the campgrounds while they were doing that. He checked out the game room, but it only had hunting simulators. The pool table only had apples and oranges and no actual balls.

Next, our protagonist decided to check out the pool area. It was an apparent disappointment because it was full of little kids whose parents were providing little to no supervision for them. He also reminisces to his dad throwing him in a pool when he was about 6 years old. Then he said that some of the kids drifted out to the deep end which was an issue because ignorant ingrates were doing cannonballs off the high dive.

There was no lifeguard on duty for some illegal reason, so every kid was doing whatever he/she wanted to do. The intelligent protagonist makes the decision to not go into the pool because he did not feel safe. He then tried the hot tub, but a bunch of dogs and cats were in it. There was a snack shack, a laundromat, and a bathhouse. In the deluxe campsite, people had actual lawns to mow. There were different rows for the elderly, families with little kids, a pet-friendly section and themes.

When the protagonist’s family was eating lunch, someone threw a random beanbag at their pitcher of lemonade accidentally and tipped it over. Then an air-raid siren went off. Their next-door neighbors told them that it meant that there was a skunk on the property. Eventually they saw the skunk in their yard eating their hot dogs. When the skunk left, the siren stopped and the place smelled terrible. According to the protagonist’s dad, if you got sprayed by a skunk, the smell was much worse than that. Apparently, if you back away slowly, a skunk will not spray you. According to the protagonist’s insightful older brother, a skunk’s spray is flammable.

The protagonist then talks about another religious philosophy. Then, the protagonist made the great decision to not shower until he finished high school if smell could scare away people by you smelling bad. The protagonist told his mom that incredible plan, and she decided to make him shower the next day. Luckily for the protagonist’s family there were a few extra hot dogs in the camper so they cooked them over the fire. Then they got sprayed with a hose by an elderly camper next to them.

She sprayed them to get them to go to sleep. Then they decided to try to get a good night’s rest, but it was hard to because of how closely packed the campers were. Some guy was doing wood carvings at his campsite with a chainsaw. After the protagonist’s dad woke up, he decided to start cooking pancakes and eggs on their griddle. Then she told the protagonist to go and move their clothes from the washer to the drier at the laundromat. There were three shower stalls. However, you only got three minutes to shower per quarter, and when the protagonist decided to try and put another quarter in, a random guy swooped in and took the stall. What a selfish person.

Someone at the laundromat had dumped Greg’s family’s clothes out of the washing machine, so they could put their clothes in. The intelligent protagonist decided to not get into an argument with the person who took his families’ clothes out because it was the guy with a chainsaw from before. Then, the protagonist’s family decided to go to the lake. There was a rope swing that was dangerous there. The scene at the lake was pure chaos. There was a ramp for if you wanted to launch yourself in the ocean with a tractor tire.

Our protagonist’s mother wanted them to swim, but after our protagonist’s near death experience in a lake, he did not want to go swimming at all. He also did not trust any water that he could not see through. He made the logical deduction that a Loch Ness monster could be down there for all he knew. The protagonist’s family got into a canoe. They almost died because some teenagers found a hammock and turned it into a giant slingshot to launch watermelons. This is why no one was using the canoes. Their canoe capsized.

The protagonist’s mother then told him that he needed to socialize with kids his age. She found a group of boys his age and decided to tell them that he needed to join them. They then decided to go fishing with the protagonist. He became friends with kids named “Juicebox,” “Big Marcus,” “Weevil,” and “DooDoo”. Some other kids named “Fivehead,” “Cutter,” and “Regular Marcus,” also joined the group. The protagonist called himself, “Jimmy Dogfish,” because they were using fake names.

They started to talk about which superhero would win in a fight, and then that conversation morphed into which superpower was the best. Then, that somehow turned into a debate over what animal you would choose to fight if you were sentenced to death. They then got into a debate over whether you should fight a shark with the head of a person, or a person with the head of a shark. The answer would easily be the former, but alas, I digress.

, The conversation started to turn into a brawl that was surely brewing. Then it began. The intelligent protagonist decided to move out of the way. What an intelligent move on his part. Then, the fight was over and the guys showed the protagonist the ins and outs of the camp. They knew how to get a free bag of pretzels from the vending machine, and the exact time the delivery truck came to restock the camp store.

The boys also liked to pull pranks. They started pouring extra shampoo into a random man’s hair. Then, ‘Cutter’ laughed, and the man found them. It was also the guy with the chainsaw. After the boys hid from “Chainsaw Guy,” they then started to play some games. The final game they played was “Red Rover,” until they saw a watermelon fall from the sky. They ran for cover under the shed where they kept the kayaks. The ‘Juicebox’ kid said that every time that he and his group of friends played in the field, the teenagers decided to fight back.

The Juicebox kid said that he had made up his mind that he would finally fight back against the teenagers. They took a lot of water guns and set up a whole ambush plan. Then, all of them sprayed a lot of water on the teenagers, but all it did was make them mad and want to chase them. Then, they reloaded their guns with soda, ketchup, and mustard and blasted the teenagers with them. Then, the snack shack was filled with bees that were harassing the teenagers.

They then regrouped at the old spot and said that the camp director would be coming and would be mad that they made a mess. They also said that they should make a pact so that if anyone got caught, no one would rat anyone out. There was a pool party, so the protagonist’s mom wanted him to get plastic utensils at the store. On his way there, he saw Regular Marcus hiding in a trash can. He saw posters that were obviously a trap all over camp. All of his friends got trapped.

The Juicebox kid pinned everything on our poor protagonist who had enough problems on his hands already. To evade capture the protagonist went to the pool party. A bunch of people started to create a whirlpool. Someone greased the slide, so people could slide off at 100 miles per hour. The person who chose the film chose “Jaws” in a pool, which freaked out the little kids. There was a balloon-popping relay in which they did terribly because our protagonist’s little brother didn’t have enough body weight to pop the balloons.

However, our protagonist’s little brother made up for the balloon popping relay race, because he won the hot-dog eating contest. Our protagonist’s mom tried to get him to enter a mother-son dance contest with her, but he refused. He tried to win the pie-eating contest, but he sadly was unable to because his seat was the closest to the pool. In the belly-flop contest, too many people got on the diving board at the same time and it was not meant to carry that much weight.

The pool was crowded and unenjoyable. The tire that they used was giant. Then, the teenagers from earlier entered the pool. The rest of the protagonist’s family got out of the pool, yet he decided to stay in so that he was not recognized by the teenagers like an intellectual. Then, the director and Juicebox showed up. Our intelligent protagonist decided to stay at the bottom of the pool so they did not find him.

Apparently, lightning started to strike the place. Greg ran inside his family’s camper. Greg thanked the Lord for the storm, but then saw a skunk in the house and then thought that God had a sense of humor. Then, the protagonist explained what it felt like to be sprayed by a skunk. They had to put ketchup and mustard all over them so that they could sleep through the night without the skunk smell. The entire camper ended up smelling disgusting.

People were acting crazy and buying everything up in the stores because a bolt of lightning struck the bridge leading to the campground and one section of the bridge was destroyed. People could not leave, or have supplies brought in. Eventually, Greg’s family was able to have the skunk smell removed from them. People at the water well took more water than they needed and the well went dry. Then people started getting water from the showers. When people ran out of coins, they then decided to go to drastic measures to get quarters. One lady sold her wedding ring for 3 quarters.

The pets started to sense that something was off, and even they started ganging up to steal food. There was an emergency flash flood happening as well. People started tipping campers over, and the protagonist’s intelligent family decided to try and leave the area. They could not have their headlights on, so they decided to drive down the creek. In the end, the protagonist’s intelligent little brother drove the car in place, so that the bridge would be held with the car. Then, people started to drive over their RV.

Campers’ Eden lived up to its name after everyone left, and it turned into a calm and peaceful place. Luckily the trip went well in the end. The stoic protagonist was willing to brag about the trip to his many friends. In the end for once, there was a happy ending. It actually took a miracle for it to happen.

In the end, I would give this book a 10/10. It is much better than other books these days. But anyways, it is a great read for people trying to just relax. It is very interesting and cunningly written. It was much different from the other books in the series, yet it was still good.