Diving into the Wreck: Key Poetic Devices

Allegory

An allegory (AL-uh-GO-ree) is a term used to describe a narrative that can be interpreted to reveal two distinct but correlated levels of meaning. A common example of allegory is The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. This narrative tells of a man named Christian who travels from the “City of Destruction” to the “Celestial City.” A reader can enjoy The Pilgrim's Progress solely for the adventure that unfolds as Christian makes his way in the world. However, a reader can also interpret a second level of meaning, where Christian is an allegorical figure who stands in for all Christian believers. Understood in this way, his journey to the Celestial City allegorizes every Christian’s spiritual journey toward God. In a similar way, a reader could take “Diving into the Wreck” at face value, enjoying it as a poem about a speaker who literally dives into the ocean to explore an old shipwreck. However, we could also interpret the poem as an allegory for any kind of exploration that requires a symbolic “descent” to explore something forgotten or else buried in the past. For example, based on Rich’s commitment to feminism, we could interpret the poem as an exploration of longstanding yet damaging myths of womanhood.

Allusion

An allusion (uh-LOO-zhun) is a passing reference to a literary or historical person, place, or event, usually made without explicit identification. “Diving into the Wreck” features two key allusions. The first occurs in lines 8–12, where the speaker alludes to the prominent French underwater explorer, Jacques-Yves Cousteau (1910–1997):

I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

In naming this famous explorer, the speaker aims to distinguish themself from the French diver. Unlike Cousteau, whose fame enabled him to travel with an extensive support team, the speaker embarks on their dive alone. Likewise, whereas Cousteau publicized his dives in film and writing, the speaker’s dive has a private quality that cannot be similarly documented. The second allusion in the poem is less specific but equally important. In the ninth stanza, the speaker describes themself as both a “mermaid” (line 72) and a “merman” (line 73). They go on to say, “I am she: I am he” (line 77). Here, the speaker presents themself as an androgynous figure that alludes to several precedents, both in Greco-Roman mythology and Jungian psychology. Although the specific allusion isn’t clear, what’s important is the emphasis on androgyny, and the mythic or psychic blending of qualities traditionally coded as “feminine” and “masculine.”

Repetition

The speaker of “Diving into the Wreck” makes powerful use of repetition. Specifically, they use a form of repetition known as diacope (die-ACK-uh-pee), which refers to instances where individual words or phrases are repeated in quick succession, often with a few words between each instance. The clearest example of diacope appears in lines 34–43, where the speaker describes their underwater descent:

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

Each repetition in this passage occurs within the space of one or two lines. The density of repetition creates a sense of compression that mimics the increasing pressure that occurs when a body descends deeper underwater. The speaker also uses different forms of the repeated words to evoke the descent. For example, the shift from “blue” to “bluer” emphasizes how the water’s color darkens as the speaker descends. Soon after the water gets “bluer,” it goes “black” and makes the speaker feel like they’re “blacking out.” This latter repetition of “black” and “blacking” is technically an example of antanaclasis (AN-tu-nuh-CLASS-iss). This term refers to instances of repetition of a word where the second occurrence carries a different meaning. In this case, the first occurrence refers to the color black, whereas the second refers to the experience of losing consciousness.

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