Alive or Dead?

[IEDSRI@aol.com]

In response to the question, "Does she live or die?", IED vaguely recalls
Kate saying that "there has to be some kind of hope in there."   The quote
given by Andisheh doesn't really settle the issue of whether the character
actually lives or dies.  ("Well, that's really meant to be the rescue of the
whole situation, where now suddenly out of all this darkness and weight comes
light. You know, the weightiness is gone and here's the morning, and it's
meant to feel very positive and bright and uplifting from the rest of dense,
darkness of the previous track.")  Kate's characteristically elliptical
syntax  (the "rescue of the whole situation") suggests something other than
"the girl's rescue from the water".  This fan's reading of the above is that
it tends to confirm IED's view that the light represents hope, though not
necessarily certain salvation.

In any event, there is really no reason for Andisheh's disappointment.  He
writes:

 > She looks death in the face, and her last thought is that she
 > is a richer person for her ordeal --- that she loves more, and
 > loves better.

But this would certainly be the case whether our heroine ultimately lived or
died.  The Ninth Wave is resolved in such a way that the issue of the
heroine's life or death cannot be positively determined; but a more important
point is that, whether she lives or dies (and there is, on balance, stronger
evidence that she lives than that she dies),  her ordeal has led her to a
higher level of  self-awareness and maturity -- that she is, in a sense, at
peace.

-- Andrew Marvick (IED)
   S               R              I  
   P.S.:   IED has only minor quibbles with the rest of Andisheh's summary --
for instance, what makes Andisheh think that the protagonist is in a boat at
the beginning of the tale?  The only authorized illustration of the scene has
her actually in the water, wearing a nightgown and a life-jacket, with what
looks like the detritus of a formal shipboard-dinner's flower-setting strewn
in the waves around her. 
  P.P.S.:  IED loved Keith's idea:  "I sort of linked this song as being the
first of a trio, with 'Watching' representing her <current life/age> and 'Jig
of Life' representing her <future> pleading with her present."   This
supplies a plausible
structural/strategic reason for the choice of a historical scene in "Waking
the Witch".   Great!