Symbolically, that’s the same pattern we see in baptism: death and rebirth through the medium of water. He’s thrown into the water, where his old identity dies with his older brother. The self who bobs to the surface and clings to the sailboat is a new being. He goes out an insecure, awkward younger brother and comes back an only child, facing a world that knows him as that kid brother, as his old self.
Wow. The entire metric and standard he was measuring his self worth by was his brother, and with that gone, he and those around him aren’t able to “estimate” his worth anymore. And the river symbolises that as a kind of “baptism” and rebirth. That’s cool.
