Diving into the Wreck: Symbols

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

The Book of Myths

The speaker makes various references to a “book of myths” throughout the poem. This mysterious book symbolizes the various social, cultural, and historical narratives that have shaped the speaker and their society. To help understand this book’s significance, it’s important to understand what myths are. Myths are essentially stories meant to explain how the world came to be the way it is, and why it works the way it does. In seeking to explain the world through stories, myths also shape our values and influence how we think. That is, they help us orient ourselves in the world. But as myths get passed down from generation to generation, they also become increasingly separated from everyday reality. Because of this, they may outgrow their relevance, even if they continue to exert significant influence. It’s precisely due to such a concern that the speaker seeks out “the wreck and not the story of the wreck / the thing itself and not the myth” (lines 62–63). The story of the wreck that’s recorded in the “book of myths” may well be oversimplified, misleading, and no longer useful. In this context, seeking out the truth of “the thing itself” may prove liberating.

The Wreck

The wreck has multiple meanings in the poem. As the remnant of a destructive event, the wreck can symbolize any kind of disaster or trauma. The wreck’s underwater location adds another layer of symbolism, specifically suggesting that the disaster or trauma has been forgotten or else hidden from view. Beyond this level of generality, however, the speaker doesn’t provide much detail about the wreck, which leaves us readers to make our own interpretation. Perhaps the wreck symbolizes a traumatic experience the speaker had in their life, which they now feel capable of examining. Alternatively, the wreck could symbolize a damaging cultural narrative that has harmed a group of historically marginalized or oppressed people. On a more abstract level, the wreck could also be said to symbolize the truth that lies behind any given myth, the reality that lies behind the story. In the seventh stanza, the speaker declares their intention to investigate “the wreck and not the story of the wreck / the thing itself and not the myth” (lines 62–63). Here, the wreck stands in direct opposition to the “book of myth,” which may contain a misleading or oversimplified story that distorts the complexity of the “real” wreck.

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