Dead in the Water
62 pages • 2-hour read
John MarrsDead in the Water
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Symbols & Motifs
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence, illness, death, child death, death by suicide, suicidal ideation, and mental illness.
The Handkerchief
Damon carries a handkerchief with him wherever he goes to stop the nosebleeds he has had since he was a boy. He describes it as “the only keepsake [he’s] retained from [his] childhood” (47). The handkerchief is symbolic of his violence. Not only is it bloodstained from his repeated nosebleeds, but he also used it as a murder weapon to asphyxiate Callum. Even though Melissa doesn’t know the details of Damon’s past, she nevertheless finds the handkerchief creepy, stating that it “give[s] her the ick” (89), suggesting that she has an intuitive or subconscious understanding that the handkerchief represents Damon’s violent past.
As Damon begins to uncover more about his past, he comes to rely on the handkerchief more. For instance, after Damon consults with the hypnotherapist and listens to the tapes of his sessions with Dr. Dahl, he feels compelled to take out his “ragged handkerchief” and hold it under his nose to stop a nosebleed that never comes. This compulsion indicates that it is more than a literal tool for Damon—it is also a psychological representation of his past.
The handkerchief is also symbolic of his tie to his half-sister, Sally, and the illness they share. Like Damon, Sally carries a handkerchief with her “for unpredictable nosebleeds” brought on by her brain tumor (373). She uses that handkerchief to asphyxiate Damon, just as he used his to kill Callum, emphasizing their symbolic tie through hereditary illness and violence represented by the handkerchief.
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
When Damon resolves to find someone online to help him die and then come back so that he can have a near-death experience and hopefully regain more memories of his childhood, he goes to “an obscure online message board” and shares his experience “under the username Jude St Francis from the novel A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara” (71), a controversial novel that has attracted criticism over its depiction of trauma, mental illness, and death by suicide. Jude St Francis is the long-suffering protagonist of A Little Life who faces the lingering impacts of his violent and traumatic childhood. Even though, at this point in the novel, Damon does not actively remember the details of his childhood, that he relates so much to this fictional character implies that he subconsciously relates to Jude’s struggles. In the novel, Jude eventually dies by suicide. A Little Life is therefore symbolic of Damon’s obsession with death and his past.
As Laura notes, “[T]he irony of the plot and Damon’s situation isn’t lost on her” (76). She understands his use of the name Jude St. Francis as an “indicatio[n] that he is serious” about dying by suicide (76). For Laura’s part, A Little Life, which she describes as her “favorite book,” is symbolic of her skewed image of herself as a good Samaritan who kills people in order to alleviate their suffering.
Damon’s Tattoos
Damon’s tattoos are a recurring motif that relate to the theme of The Unreliability of Memory. He has numerous tattoos that he does not entirely understand but that connect to his past. For instance, he has a tattoo across his collarbone that reads “Offering Others Direction in Sorrow,” which he describes as “a phrase [he] woke up remembering after a dream in which Mum emerged into [his] subconscious” (29). It is not until he begins to recover his memories that he realizes that the first letters of the phrase are representative of the phrase that Callum haunts him with, “oodis,” meaning “you did this.”
Damon’s dawning realization of the significance of his tattoos as he learns more about his past is a key part of his character arc. For instance, several of his tattoos incorporate lyrics of the Oasis song “Don’t Look Back in Anger.” When the song is played at his father’s funeral, he realizes, “[P]erhaps I used to hear Dad playing it on the occasions we were together” (290).
This motif comes to the fore toward the end of the novel when Damon realizes that his tattoos are all connected to his past and, particularly, his past crimes: He has “been wearing [his] story all along” (338). As he draws the connections between his tattoos and his past, he realizes that “for all these years, [his] subconscious has been trying to tell [him] who [he is]” (338), even though he could not actively remember the details.
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