Critically examine the depiction of human behavior in “Wave” by Sonali Deraniyagala

 

“Wave” by Sonali Deraniyagala illustrates how human beings may react when forced into extreme situations. The narrator, her husband Steve, her two children, her friend Orlantha, Orlantha’s parents Anton and Beulah and the narrator’s parents and the driver are the characters the story deals with. The narrative takes the form of a memoir offering the reader a clear view of the actions and motives of these characters.

Sonali is said to have written the memoir as a part of self-healing process. She had experienced the 2004 tsunami that had killed her entire family leaving only her alive while they were vacationing in Sri Lanka. Hence, we might say that the depiction of human actions here is to the point and unapologetic to a large extent. The writer rarely attempts to justify her own actions or the actions of the other characters. Instead she presents her own actions and those of others in a matter-of-fact manner. One can categorize the way the characters behave in this extract as prior to the danger, during the danger and after the danger had passed.

Before experiencing the tsunami, the family and friends behave in a way that might be termed typical of a vacationing middle class family would behave - there are undercurrents of residual tension between the narrator and her husband evident in the way the narrator describes her husband’s reaction to her comment about the sea. There is easy friendship between the narrator’s family and Orlantha’s family – they visit each other’s rooms and spend time together.

Everything changes with the onset of the tsunami. The narrator had no experience facing a tsunami. At the beginning she just observes the strange behavior of the sea. However, at some point her instincts seem to have warned her that she should flee. Then without hesitation she abandons everything and runs out of the room with her children and the husband barefooted. Her irrational fear is so great that she would not pause to give her husband one of the children. Her worry is so great she completely forgets the very existence of her friend who has warned of the strange behavior of the waves. Not only that, she also consciously decides not to stop to warn her parents of the possible danger. While her desire to save her family is very commendable, her negligence of the welfare of her friend as well as her own parents could only be called utterly selfish. However, if one is to consider how a typical human being would behave under stress or when his or her life is threatened, then the narrator and her husband’s behavior is nothing extraordinary. Under such circumstances one is mostly concerned with one’s own welfare. Parents, on the other hand, often put the welfare of their children ahead of their own – this according to biologists is a necessary quality built into our genetic makeup to ensure the survival of the species.      

However, on rare occasions people rise above genetics and act selflessly. Such people are lauded as heroes. The process of socialization rewards such behavior by recording such actions as commendable. In the extract the driver waits for the guests of the hotel to get onto his jeep in order to take them to safety. His duty-consciousness and empathy for others cause him his life. Orlantha, unlike the narrator, takes time to warn her own parents of the impending disaster. When his wife falls off the jeep, Anton tries to help her back onto the jeep and when she fails to get on, he also jumps down despite the clear knowledge he too would die should he do so. When she falls off the jeep, Beulah does not cry out or try to stop the jeep endangering others on board – she smiles. The narrator and her husband put aside their marital differences and try to save at least the children from drowning by lifting them up above the water level. Yet, at the moment of the disaster, the narrator loses sense of everything and everyone around her; she is conscious of only her. “Pain. That was all I could feel,” she is solely conscious of her survival in a Darwinian sense.

In conclusion, “Wave” by Sonali Deraniyagala offers a vivid canvas of human behavior in a moment of disaster. It illustrates how some may behave selfishly in self-preservation while others may act driven by the biological urge to preserve the species. The extract also illustrates how human beings can behave heroically superhumanly at times of crisis at the expense of their own lives to save total strangers as in the case of the driver or a loved one as in the case of Anton and Orlantha. The story also illustrates how people resort to self-delusion to stem the sense of crippling guilt we feel over our actions or inaction at times of crisis, too. The narrator and her husband tries to comfort the children and themselves by saying that the narrator’s parents would somehow escape and that they would meet them later after the danger had passed.