Essay on Water Symbolism in Literature

The short stories in the guide show the variation water have as a theme. The stories “Down to a Sunless Sea,” “Diving Into the Wreck,” and “The First Body is the Water,” each have polarizing uses of water. The different impressions we get from these stories are a few reasons why people are attracted to water as a theme.

The short story “Down to a Sunless Sea” uses water as a force of disposition. The story is told from a second person point of view where you meet a woman who lost her son to a sailing accident. In the accident, sailors were stuck on a boat with no food. They resort to cannibalism with her son being the victim. One of the surviving sailors kept a bone and gave it to the mother before drowning himself. Water is pictured as the sinister force that causes the events to unfold. The mother hates the water for taking her son. We are told through the narrator that the father of the family drowned in the events before the story. And finally, the end of the story has the water drowning the sailor.

The short poem “Diving into the Wreck” is different from the previous story. Instead, water is used as a symbol of revelation to explore oneself. The selection is a freestyle poem that uses numerous metaphors to combat issues such as sexism, feminism, class, and Homosexuality. In the story, the narrator explores the wreck of the Titanic. While they are exploring the wreck, they are also exploring their own mind. The author presents the experience as exploring a new world with infinite depth and complex structures that are analogous to the real world.

The poem “The First Body is the Water,” although similar to “Down to a Sunless Sea” uses water to identify the person's spiritual body. For background information, The Dakota access pipeline has cut off the Gila River Indian Tribes access to clean water. The poem is about the protests to defend the tribe and their water. It is made clear to the reader that the river and the people are one and cutting off the river would be to cut ties with their own mind.

Overall, water can symbolize peace, calmness, but also the tragedy it can cause. Each story is unique apart from water as the theme. The polarizing use water can have in literature is why people are attracted to it.