Essay Questions

How does this poem explore misunderstanding and miscommunication?

This poem is all about misunderstandings between people, and how a lack of effective communication can harm people. The protagonist of this poem is a man who is not taken seriously when he asks for help. The narrator suggests this is because the man "always loved larking," and therefore everyone thought he wasn't seriously asking for help. Ultimately, this misunderstanding is a metaphor for the fact that he was emotionally misunderstood throughout his life.

What reason does the speaker give as to why the man was misunderstood?

This poem is about a man who is drowning in a lake, but his cries for help are misunderstood as waving. The speaker suggests that the reason for this misunderstanding is the fact that:

"He always loved larking
And now he's dead."

Here, she suggests that he was not taken seriously because he was a bit of a joker, and they assumed that he was fooling around.

What is the meaning of this poem?

Although this poem at first seems like a light-hearted story about a man whose waving was misunderstood, it has a very serious meaning. This is revealed in the final stanza when the speaker tells us that the man "was much too far out," all of his life, and was always "not waving but drowning." Here, the drowning becomes a metaphor for the man's struggles, and the fact he suffered in silence throughout his life.