Here’s a full analysis of the poem ‘Not Waving But Drowning’ by Stevie Smith, tailored towards GCSE/IGCSE students but also suitable for those studying at a higher level.
Includes
VOCABULARY
STORY / SUMMARY
SPEAKER / VOICE
ATTITUDES
LANGUAGE FEATURES
FORM / STRUCTURE
CONTEXT
THEM...
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Not Waving But Drowning
“I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning...”
Stevie Smith
(Full poem unable to be reproduced due to copyright)
VOCABULARY
Poor chap — an old fashioned expression that means “poor man”, the speaker feels sorry for him.
Larking — a verb that means “messing around” or playing / enjoying yourself and not taking things too
seriously.
STORY / SUMMARY
This is a narrative poem that tells the story of a man who drowned, he was
signaling to people that he needed help but they mistook his behaviour for
waving, and so they did nothing. The man had a reputation for “larking”,
messing around, so he wasn’t taken seriously. The final stanza is a little more
difficult, the speaker tells us that “it was too cold always”, suggesting that
the man always struggled with life, and furthermore that she too feels she is
similar to this man, that she is drowning but it may be interpreted as waving
because she is “much too far out”, too distanced or too different, for people
to understand how she truly feels.
, SPEAKER / VOICE
The speaker is a third-person narrator of the man’s tragic ending, although in
the first and final stanza the poem shifts to first-person and becomes about
herself, as she draws parallels between this man and her own situation. The
narrator has a sympathetic tone towards the man, repeating the phrase
“poor chap” to show how sorry she felt for him and to demonstrate that she
can empathise.
LANGUAGE FEATURES
Pitiful / Sorrowful tone — though the poem has some almost humorous and comic elements (such as
the absurdity of someone drowning looking like they’re waving), there is overall a pitiful tone towards
the subject (the death of the man), we feel as if the speaker thinks it is a waste and that his death could
have been prevented (tragicomic).
Repetition — there are several images or motifs that are repeated, the most prominent being - “still
he lay moaning” / “(Still the dead one lay moaning)”, a haunting image that shows us the psychological
and physical suffering of the man. He is unnamed and referred to as “the dead one” in the final stanza,
making him more of a symbol for those with depression and mental health issues, rather than a named
character. This may be why he is still “moaning” after death because he represents all people like him
who are suffering alone and need more help and support.
A further motif is an uncanny image of “not waving but drowning”, repeated in the title and throughout
the poem as the final line in the first and last stanza. This creates a circularity to the poem as if it
keeps coming back to this same image - the moment where the man asked for help and wasn’t given
assistance, as if this is a crucial moment that could have made a difference if people had paid attention
to his cries for help.
Continuous verbs — there is a juxtaposition of continuous verbs that represent constant movement in
life to the absoluteness and finality of death: “moaning” / “waving” / “drowning” / “larking”.
The third-person pronoun — “they” is used in a way that demonstrates the distance between the
people who knew the man and the man himself.
Metaphor — “it must have been too cold for him his heart gave way” / “no no no, it was too cold
alwaysl - this difference between “their” perspective and the perspective of the man and speaker is
emphasised via the metaphor “too cold”, the people who could have helped the man thought that he
drowned because the water at that moment was too cold for the man to stand, but Smith tries to get us
to understand that the man was suffering always, that he was essentially “too cold”, feeling discomfort
and pain, in a psychological sense and that was the real reason for the death / suicide. It feels as though
Smith understands the man far more than those around him did, she can empathise as she experienced
similar feelings (see the context for more info).
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