Not waving but drowning - Essay Example

In each of these states, whether European or American, people were experiencing a great deal of alienation and isolation as a result of these tremendous changes. Perhaps it is not surprising, then, to find the desolation and isolation of this period reflected as a major theme in the poetry created during this period such as “Not Waving but Drowning” by Stevie Smith. The isolation is almost overwhelming in Smith’s poem as she begins with the desolate lonely cry of a man that nobody hears.

Although he is introduced as being dead, “Nobody heard him, the dead man, / But still he lay moaning” (1-2), making himself known to someone. This introduction presents several possibilities as to his true condition. The first is that the man is only symbolically dead, dead on the inside, and so is physically alive and able to moan in his continued pain and loneliness. He could also be so close to death that there is no possibility of saving him before he’s gone, and he’s moaning in anticipation of the inevitable.

Another possibility is that he is actually dead, but there remain a few possibilities as to his continued moaning. The pain and anguish of his death might have been too much for him to bear and thus he is still moaning even after death. Finally, the suggestion that nobody heard him invokes the sense of the ghostly, so that perhaps the man is moaning in the form of a ghost, attempting to warn those who can hear of the dangers of allowing individuals to become too isolated from society. The words that Smith provides him in the second portion of this stanza further emphasize the sense of isolation and failed attempts at connection.

The dead man says, “I was much further out than you thought / And not waving but drowning” (3-4). This indicates that whether he was alive or dead, this man never felt as close to his fellow humans as they perceived him to be and, as a result, they were unable to recognize the signs of distress he was sending