by implication, identity. But the man in Berkeleyís poem chooses to
write ëfacts about waterí, and he composes a list of nautical and
technical terms of measurement that would attempt to contain and
control the flood promised in the first stanza. Yet water threatens land
as it dissolves beneath the tide. As in Nuala NÌ Dhomhnaillís poem
ëQuicksandí (1986), Medbh McGuckianís ëOn Ballycastle Beachí
(1988) and Eavan Bolandís ëAnna Liffeyí (1995), water can be feared
for its depths and ability to drown, and can be associated with an
ëoceanic feelingí, representing the unconscious seas into which we
may all be cast adrift.^41 In critical psychoanalysis, the vastness of the
ocean is where we find our being and is associated with the womb. By
way of avoiding being castaway into such alterity, the man writes a
list of terms and tools that enable the sailor to navigate dangerous
waters. Whereas the woman gives the man an imaginative space that
provides him with stable ground, he gives her facts, words that denote
things and the ability to ëreturní to ëdry landí.
The words he writes in the sand are associated with a technical
world that has traditionally been used by men of science. His diction
is binding and confining as his language pays attention to measuring
units of water. As the man writes we find land and sea become
mapped, measured and confined into the small units of nautical
navigation and cartography by technical tools such as the ësextant,
compass, dipstick, dial,/ plumb, octant, nautical mileí. The alliteration,
rhythms and rhyme of the poem become more measured, tight and
rigid as the flood or the water is controlled. The man attempts to
become master of the flood but in view of his shaky hand it is unclear
whether he manages to gain control as writer or sailor. Bearing in
mind the image of his falling at the womanís feet in the first stanza
and the way in which she tells him, as she would a child, to call out in
the night should he need her, it appears the man is less masterful than
his language would suggest. This also undermines the tacit idea within
feminism that control of words allows us control of the world.
Berkeleyís poem does not imply her control over objects, and the
41 Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, ‘Quicksand’, Selected Poems: Rogha Dánta, trans.
Michael Hartnett (Dublin: Raven, 1993); Medbh McGuckian, On Ballycastle
Beach (Meath: Gallery, 1995), p.85; Eavan Boland, ‘Anna Liffey’, Collected
Poems (Manchester: Carcanet, 1990), pp.199–211.