Group 6 Literary Appreciation 07SIGP001

Dimas Fajar Riyadi (191010600305)

Muhammad Alfa Ramadhan (191010600234)
Muhammad Rifaldi Rafsanjani (191010600348)

Raka Alfisyah Ariyanto (191010600556)

ANALYSIS OF NOT WAVING BUT DROWNING (1975) POEM BY STEVIE SMITH

Not Waving but Drowning is a poem made by Stevie Smith in 1957. This poem
consists of three stanzas with four lines in each stanza or can be called as a Quatrain. In this
poem, the main tone that appear is ironic with the dark theme which become aggressive tone.
The poem also has two different speakers, first is the narrator and second is the character ‘I’.
Narrator as the speaker can be seen from the first stanza in the first line, “Nobody heard him,
the dead man,” (Smith, line 1) who knows everything about the story or omniscent, and the
second speaker is the character ‘I’ which move to the first person view as in the third line of
the first stanza, “I was much further out than you thought” (Smith, line 3).

This poem tells about an emotional situation of a speaker whose true tribulations go
unnoticed by all those around him. It is about a person who is on the verge of death in this
case drowning, but other people see that he is waving as his action to get help which can be
seen from the first stanza in the last line, “And not waving but drowning” (Smith, line 4).
There is no one who helped him includes the character ‘I’ while the dead man groaning for
help from drowning. It can be seen in the second line of the first stanza, “But still he lay
moaning:” (Smith, line 2) which indicates the dead man is not fully dead and still ask for help.
From the four line of the first stanza, it can be concluded that the dead man is on the verge of
death and make the tone of the four lines of the first stanza is ironic. Until finally he died and
there was nothing special about his death, because he died in the cold, the cold here is cold
because no one cares about him, because he is too far away so people don't see him clearly as
depicted in the second and third line of the second stanza, “And now he’s dead/It must have
been too cold for him his heart gave way,” (Smith, lines 6-7).

The feeling we get after read the poem is very sad because of the irony felt by the
dead man. It is sad when we see person who needs help for his life but no one helps because
of wrong assumption. It shows a very deep irony because the people around him seem cold
and don't help him at all even though they saw him. The line four of the second stanza, “They
said.” (Smith, line 8) shows how people actually see him, but in their assumption, they think
if the dead man just waving at them instead of drowning. This also responded by the
character ‘I’ that it is not just cold but too cold for him for what ironically happen to him
which depicted in the first line of the third stanza, “Oh, no no no, it was too cold always”
(Smith, line 9). Based on our opinion, this is quite relatable because the word "drowning"
describes a word such as a problem or difficulty but there is no one around the dead man to
help him, therefore the author conveys his experience in different words, like in this poem.
With poetry, the author is more able to convey his story.

We think what happened to this character is very tragic because there is no one to help
him, they think this character is waving and also the distance is quite far so it is not obvious.
In other words drowning here means not only drowning but can have other meanings such as
in a very serious problem but people around do not seem to care about it, even though people
have symphatize for him as in the first line of the secon stanza, “Poor chap, he always love
larking” (Smith, line 5). This poem makes us feel sympathize with the character in this case
the dead man, because the dead man is someone who only growls and needs help but no one
feels the dead man needs help and only waving. The irony felt by the dead man makes us feel
bad that no one in the poem could help him from drowning because it is only moaning he
could do and could not ask for help clearly until the death comes.
 ANALYSIS OF ZIMMER IN GRADE SCHOOL (1983) POEM BY PAUL ZIMMER

Zimmer in Grade School is a poem made by Paul Zimmer. The poem has 2 stanzas
with 14 lines in its form which called as a Sonnet. In our opinion, this poem is made into the
dark side of a child in society. This dark side become the major tone in this poem,
specifically ironic tone which the type is aggressive tone. The story of this poem focuses on
the complaints of the main character who feels insecure, doubtful, and afraid of a boy named
Zimmer. This poem use the first person viewpoint. It is already showed in the second line of
the first stanza, “Why I had been born” (Zimmer, line 2) which means that Zimmer is the
narrator and the speaker himself. Besides, the line also show how the character questioning
about the reason why he had been born and live his life. Moreover, Zimmer has no one to be
believe in his life as we can see from the line eight until ten in the first stanza, “I feared
everything: God,/Learning, and my schoolmates./I could not count, spell, or read.” (Zimmer,
lines 8-10). We feel sorry for Zimmer for not being treated fairly by others and living his
childhood in irony. On the other hand, Zimmer's parents don't seem to care about what
Zimmer is feeling right now. We can see from the quotation, “My parents wrung their loving
hands./My guardian angel wept constantly.” (Zimmer, lines 13-14). So, it's pretty clear that
she feels inferior not only in appearance but also academically because she can't read, count
and spell which makes her afraid of doing something wrong. Some of the quotation evidence
that shows he has anxiety and overthinking which make the tone become sad, "If I peed my
pants in class/The puddle was always quickly evident." (Zimmer, lines 16-17). Even he feels
that God will be ashamed of every mistake he has made, this is in the quotation “My worst
mistakes were at/The blackboard for Jesus and all/The saints to see.” (Zimmer, lines 18-20).

If we look at children his age in general, they will behave naturally and have friends.
Meanwhile, Zimmer is described as having no friends and always taking his problems out on
the objects around him, as in the quotation, “The one who does the messy papers/And
fractures all his crayons,” (Zimmer, lines 24-25). In our opinion, maybe the writer (Paul
Zimmer) wants to share his experiece as a child in this poem because he thinks this poem can
be used as a lesson for his readers. That's why Paul Zimmer made this poem based on his past
experiences. In this story Zimmer's character also looks like a troublemaker and that's what
makes him unable to do anything but pee his pants and make trouble. On the other hand, we
think this story is enough to describe us when we were in elementary school, we felt less
confident because we couldn't do something, like this Zimmer character, he felt like a failure
and lacked confidence because he couldn't do anything. Sometimes we also think why we
were born and just like zimmer we prefer to be quiet and sit behind and keep a low profile
because we don't want to steal too much attention and bullying is also one of the problems
that exist in elementary school, although in this poem it is not mentioned. mention clearly but
indirectly this zimmer character is like someone who is always bullied.

In the end, Zimmer is the speaker or the character ‘I’ which in this case is the author
himself. As it is mentioned in the poem in the line eight and nine in the second stanza, “When
I hide behind an elaborate mask,/It is always known that I am Zimmer,” (Zimmer, lines 22-
23) the character ‘I’ is identified itself as Zimmer. Those two lines also has meaning that no
matter how hard he escaping and try not to do anything, other children will say everything
happen in is because of Zimmer even though he does noble things.
 REFERENCES

Galens, D. (Ed.). (2004) Poetry for students: Presenting analysis, context, and criticsm on
commonly studied poetry (vol.19). USA: Gale.

Smith, S. (2002). Not waving but drowning. In F. Madden. Exploring poetry: Writing and
thinking about poetry (pp.10-11). New York: Longman.
Zimmer, P. (2002). Zimmer in grade school. In F. Madden. Exploring poetry: Writing and
thinking about poetry (pp.9-10). New York: Longman.