16 pages • 32 minutes read
Stevie SmithNot Waving but Drowning
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1957A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Waving as a Friendly Symbol
Waving appears first in the title, and it carries a positive meaning. Waving symbolizes friendliness or connection. One person might wave at a person that they know or that they want to know. It is a signal of awareness and life.
The group of unnamed people—the “[t]hey” (Line 8)—think the man is waving at them. Their interpretation of the gesture reinforces its positive symbolism. They believe the man is in good spirits—he is enthusiastically greeting them while “larking” (Line 5) about in the water, apparently signaling to them that he is having a good time. In reality, the wave is a signal of distress, with the man trying to get their attention so that they will rescue him from drowning. The poem’s symbolism of waving and its misinterpretations suggests that people can outwardly appear fine while inwardly struggling and needing help.
Drowning as a Symbol of Struggle
Drowning is a symbol of struggle. The man tells the people at the start of the poem, “I was much further out than you thought / And not waving but drowning” (Lines 3-4). In the conclusion, the man repeats, “I was much too far out all my life / And not waving but drowning“ (Lines 11-12). While the group on the shore assumed that the man was fine and waving to them while enjoying himself, he was actually in need of rescue. The man’s attempts to convey the truth to the group—and their continuing to ignore him—reinforces the idea of the unseen struggle.
The act of drowning is both a literal event in the poem and a figurative representation of mental health issues in life. The man’s insistence that he was “much too far out all [his] life” (Line 11) stresses that this is not a one-time event: Even when not literally in water, he felt himself to be dangerously isolated from others and “drowning” (Lines 4, 12) in unseen sorrows for many years, not just on the day of his “death.” For the group, the drowning is a literal event with no real significance for them. For the man, the drowning has been a slow, lifelong process, the implications of which those around him stubbornly refuse to address. The others do not recognize his hardships and ignore or misunderstand his attempts to attract their acknowledgement and help. As the man does not have anyone to save him, he becomes a “dead man” (Line 1).
The Motif of Communication’s Futility
The key themes center on the motif of communication and its underlying futility. The man is dead due to his inability to effectively get across what is happening to him, as others as unable or unwilling to hear him. He is not waving and having a good time; instead, he is struggling with alienation, mental health issues, or another troubling ailment.
The man’s attempts to articulate his feelings are unsuccessful. The first words in the poem read, “Nobody heard him” (Line 1). The poem suggests communication is not possible under these circumstances: No one has “heard” the man, even when he explicitly tells them something has been wrong for a long time. The group attempts to excuse themselves by claiming his drowning is an accident due to his love of “larking” (Line 5), or to less subjective problems, like the water being “too cold” (Line 7) for his heart to handle.
The ineffective communication manifests in repetition. The poem starts and ends with the speaker trying to tell the other people that he was not waving and he was always farther away than they realized. The poem ends with the dead man reiterating his state. Smith dedicates two stanzas to the dead man but only one to the other people. The group’s indifference to the situation and their continuing to ignore the man results in the man dying and the other people’s uncritical analysis of his death.
