Not Waving but Drowning Analysis

Not Waving But Drowning is a poem by Stevie Smith, born Florence Margaret Smith, written in 1957. Stevie acquired her nickname from a friend that remarked she reminded him of a Jockey by the name of Steve. She lived from 1902 to 1971. Her poem, Not Waving But Drowning, deals with a man lost at sea, both literally and figuratively.

In order to correctly paraphrase Not Waving But Drowning, it must be noted that significant punctuation marks, namely quotations, are omitted. The lines, "I was much further out than you thought / And not waving but drowning," are actually spoken by the dying man about which the poem is written. The first line of the last stanza continues his speech, "Oh, no no no, it was too cold always." Furthermore, the final lines of the same stanza, "I was much too far out all my life / And not waving but drowning," are also spoken by the drowning man. The second line of said stanza is an aside by the author to point out that it is indeed the dying man's speech. The poems' overall theme is that the dead man was lost his entire life. He was never waving to the people that passed in and out of his life, but crying for help all along. Finally, "his heart gave way." Smith says in the first line of the second stanza, "Poor chap, he always loved larking," but is corrected by the dead man in the first line of the last stanza, saying, "it was too cold always."

There are many conflicting emotions in Not Waving But Drowning. The "They" referred to in the last line of the second stanza treat the dead man with somewhat lackadaisical mock-pity. They state his death as a matter of fact, void of emotion. It seems very dryly presented for a subject matter so intense. The narrator seems to care slightly more, but does not assign any specific emotions. She briefly tells of his misery in the poem's opening two lines, "Nobody heard him, the dead man, / But still he lay moaning." Rather than tell the story herself, she leaves it to the "They" and to the drowning man. The subject of the poem, the dying man, screams his pain through the narrator's pen. His devastating hopelessness overwhelms the narrator's indifference to create a genuinely poignant piece of literature.