22 pages • 44 minutes read
Octavio PazMy Life With the Wave
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1951A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Costs of a Toxic Relationship
The narrator enters his relationship with the wave with immediate difficulty: He is burdened with the responsibility of transporting the wave in his train car, which fails and costs him a year of his life in jail. From the events the narrator conveys, she does not appear to care about his spending time in prison, but her selfish behavior is not enough of a warning for the narrator at the time. Even when he realizes that her “emptiness” smothers him, he overlooks this because he is too immersed in their passion. The joy and thrill of their secret affair costs the narrator his clarity, which makes it increasingly difficult for him to leave, even when the wave becomes violent.
It is common that people in toxic relationships abandon all others in their lives, either because they are so immersed in the relationship and feel fulfilled by their partner alone, or because their partner demands all their attention. The wave loses her community of other waves, all the familiar objects and creatures of the sea. Without them, she becomes lonely, and the narrator is unable to replace those things himself. The narrator admits that since returning home, he “had neglected my affairs” and all other relationships (32). As fulfilling as their passionate relationship was in the beginning, they learn that they are incapable of being everything to each other.
The toxicity and abuse the narrator endures ultimately costs him his empathy. He takes the time he needs to reflect on how he should proceed with his relationship but has been so hurt that he no longer feels any emotion toward the wave. He does not think twice about getting rid of the statue and expresses no feeling at all about her being chopped up into pieces, though readers know the wave can feel the effects of transforming her state. The collapse of this relationship has left her without a voice or the power to change forms, resulting in a presumably painful (and perhaps even fatal) end.
Women’s Emotionality and Their Value to Men
The overarching comparison in “My Life with the Wave” is that love, specifically a woman’s love, is like an intense, unpredictable, powerful, ever-changing wave. By personifying the wave as the woman in this cisgender, heterosexual relationship, Paz is, whether intentionally or not, addressing women’s emotionality. It is not purely a negative portrayal; in the beginning, the wave brings warmth, light, and overwhelming joy to the narrator’s life. However, as the wave becomes disenchanted by her life in the city and the excitement of the affair wears off, she becomes quick to anger, “smothering,” and wildly unpredictable, playing into the trope of the overly emotional woman. The affair itself is all-consuming, but Paz’s characterization of the wave throughout the story suggests that some types of love (and in this case, some types of women) are just too much, for the emotional wave is the antagonist here.
The narrator assumes all women have a “center,” “that secret place that renders a woman vulnerable and mortal, that electric button where everything interlocks, twitches, straightens out, and then swoons” (30). The narrator implies that he wishes to reach a point of deeper connection with the wave, but the idea of this “magic button” in women is problematic for suggesting all women are fundamentally the same, and that the discovery of this mythical center will allow any man to suddenly understand her.
As this story is written by a man and from the perspective of a man, it conveys a masculine view of a woman’s experience. While the narrator’s emotions toward the wave change drastically, they are not described in the same dramatic way the waves are. The narrator acknowledges his fear and hatred but runs away from the wave, metaphorically distancing himself from his emotions. The narrator witnesses her restlessness and tries to console her with gifts, which she does not seem to appreciate. She is portrayed as fickle and destructive, but the narrator never asks her what she needs. Desperate, the narrator reconnects with an old girlfriend and seeks her advice, which she offers graciously because “nothing moves women as much as the possibility of saving a man” (32). This misogynistic generalization implies that all women are most motivated by opportunities to help men, and the old girlfriend’s role in the story is reduced to her efforts to save the narrator’s new relationship.
The wave also eventually loses her value to the narrator: As a frozen statute, her dangerous mood swings can no longer harm him, but she also is now reduced to a literal object. Without any feelings, she no longer has a purpose in his life—she becomes a disposable item that another man, the waiter, can make use of.
Fear of Others’ Judgment
The narrator is fearful of others’ judgment from the moment the wave decides to run away with him. He cannot bring himself to stop her, because, he says, “the furious stares of the larger waves paralyzed me” (27). The narrator is pragmatic; he knows how unlikely the wave is to thrive in the completely foreign environment of the city and knows that transporting the wave by train is not a simple task. The issue he faces is unprecedented, but he believes “this very reserve was an indication of the severity with which our act would be judged” (27).
Reality is blurred here: In this world, it is possible for the narrator to bring the wave home with him, but he suggests this relationship would be impossible for others to understand—similar to the reasoning people use when starting a secret love affair. He is so determined to keep her identity a secret that he does not explain to the thirsty passengers why they cannot drink the water in the train’s fountain, which ultimately costs him a year of imprisonment. Only when the situation becomes truly dangerous and dire does the narrator finally confide in an old girlfriend, swearing her to secrecy. The narrator approaches the relationship as something forbidden, and the abuse he endures only exacerbates his shame and need for secrecy.
The fear of others’ judgment is so overpowering that the narrator isolates himself and is left to navigate his turbulent relationship on his own. In making this a central theme of the piece, Paz suggests that secrets can be thrilling, but a relationship that elicits fear and judgment and is rooted in secrecy can be toxic.
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By Octavio Paz
