Gibran Okar

December 14, 14
Professor Anthony Reed
Caribbean Poetry

Derek Walcotts Bible:

Literary Reform, From Melville
To Omeros
Critical analyses of Derek Walcotts, Omeros, focus on the poems epic style and
radical conformity to western literary tradition, and for the most part deviate on two
grounds: 1) the significance of Omeros in the postcolonial literature, and 2) the goal that
Walcotts poetic aims to achieve. The controversial nature of Walcotts European
poeticism among Western scholars extends to the Caribbean, including Kamau
Brathwaite, who condemns Walcotts failure to ground poetics in his own culture (Paul
Jay, 2006). Walcotts disregard for a socially reflexive voice means that he, is often
speaking away from [his] society rather than speaking in towards it(quoted in Morris,
177-178)(Jay). Paul Jay views Walcotts universal dispossession in need of reconciliation.
Omeros not only explores the meaning of the self within the postcolonial, multilateral
identity of Walcott himself, but more importantly attempts to link the Caribbean identity
and writing to the historical processes associated with both(Jay).
While, in many ways I agree with Jays analysis of Omeros as coming to
understand the profoundly problematic dialectic between dissimilar inherited historical
traditions and present practices, the resolve of these occurring on a personal and/or
communal level seems to disregard a more pertinent, universal problem. The Imperial
Gaze of western tradition not only prevents Third-World literary and cultural identity
from obtaining legitimacy, but actively suppresses supposed inferior traditions. I
believe that colonization while it may not be understood in the postcolonial period as
explicit physical, economic, or political control has persisted in the manifestation of an
academic and linguistic tradition. More so, under the presumption of perfection, this
western cavalier colonization furthers the enforcement of superior traditions qua
tradition, and is capable of this action due to the monopolistic scope of influence colonial
empires achieved at their zeniths. It is this modern superiority complex coupled with
influential power that allows the values of Western Tradition to incite and reinforce
backward traditions.1
1

I am not sure if this is necessarily an original view of post-colonial

influence in the Third-World, but this was derived from my
experience of the effects of the colonial educational system in Tunisia.
After the independence of Tunisia under the leadership of Habib
Bourguiba, the French system of education, having persisted for 75
years, remained the status quo over the traditional Ottoman schooling.
All that I could discern from personal conversations and empirical
analysis was that Tunisian identity became hybridized in a similar
fashion to the francophone population of St. Lucia. This continued
language and education seem to form the basis of a present tense
them, and past tense we. Thus modernization deviated towards

Analyzing Omeros satirical engagement of Melvilles Moby Dick, I argue that

Walcotts exploration of mimicry to understand the Caribbean identity comes
secondary to 1) the condemnation of the destructive cavalier colonialism of Western
Literary Tradition, and 2) the proposal of a New World Literary Tradition,
encompassing Old and New, as equals in value. Walcotts Omeros is the manifesto of a
revolution of transcendence without retribution, equality without transgression, and
innovation without suppression.
In order to understand Walcotts satirical mimicry of Melville, I must first make a
case for their strands of similarity, the subtle interweaving of classic novel and novel epic
in a mirrored dance. In this essay, I will focus first on how historical dialectics are
omnipresent in both textual worlds, symbolically manifested within a single individual.
Then, after understanding their engagement with the conflict of history, I will turn to
expressing the impact of secondary characters and contradicting ideals on the bearer of
the wound. After comparing the resulting a better understanding of the underlying
differences between Omeros and Moby Dick and their consequences will elucidate on
Walcotts stance on Caribbean Literary Tradition, Western Tradition, and what I believe
to be most important the necessary future of literary cooperation.
I. Wounds
But who in the New World does not have a horror of the
past, whether his ancestor was torturer or victim? Who in
the depth of conscience, is not silently screaming for pardon
or for revenge?
-- (Walcott, The Muse of History)
The descent of St. Lucia into darkness began with a scream. Walcotts recounting
of this silent scream, the delineation of an inexpressible torment persisting through the
ages, is the express fear for all that is good subjecting to evil. The scream calls out from
Pip as he drowns in the ocean; it is the last breath of the Pequods crew, tempering their
what I like to call cavalier colonization (I prefer cavalier to maintain
a sense of superior knowledge/technology but also arrogance/disdain
in the illegitimate influence of the colonizer. The role of the word
cavalier(French for rider) also helps elucidate the notion. The
colonizer riding the colonized nation has the influence of the reigns,
but it is the horse, free and separate from the rider, who choses to
react in the benefit of the rider, for imposing would bring discomfort
in Third-World countries, notable for ill-established governments and
lack of self-sufficiency, the horse would subordinate quickly and fully to
the cavalier.). The group mentality, seeking to model the modern state
of the academic/lingual tradition, explicitly molds its government in
such a way. In late 2011, after the Tunisian revolution, I was shocked to
see the extent to which people were more involved in French Fashion
and Tourism than political reform. The fall of Ben-Ali seemed much
later than the possession of western, euro-centric ideals.

march to, and for, destruction. In creating Philoctete to mirror Ahabs descent towards
anomie, Walcott seems to unite the two texts both, sailors, left limp, marred at sea,
frustrated and suffering as they collapse to a silent scream, for pardon or revenge.
Wounds can come and go in many forms, but it is the discomforting consideration
of their historical origin that welds the horror of the past to Philoctete. The where and
why of Philoctetes pain once held finite elements. Com[ing] from a scraping, rusted
anchor (Derek Walcott, Omeros, 10) during labor in the unpredictable sea, it is not the
wound itself that engenders the creation of a metaphysical and wholly poetic motive for
suffering. Rather, it is the need for understanding the moral quality of the physical world.
This arises from the ability of Philoctetes wound to fester and drive the fear of a deeply
historical agony that consumes, destroys, and disenchants.
Ahab, similarly, falls victim to nature. Hunter, captain, and killer, Ahab has a past
that is full of violence, but also full of success. Ahabs silent scream can both be
characterized as torturer and as victim. What threatens the wholeness of Ahab is what
he, too, threatens. Ishmael, the narrator of Moby Dick, describes in the Whiteness of the
Whale that, this thing of whiteness [] stripped of all direct associations calculated to
import it aught fearful, nevertheless, is found to exert over us the same sorcery (Herman
Melville, Moby Dick, 203). Having had his leg stripped in battle by Moby Dick, Ahab
mirrors the suffering of Philoctete as victim. Ahabs vocation as Capitan, however, puts
him in charge of crew and ship, where his wild vindictiveness against the whale
(Melville, 194) not only enjoins the crew in the search for a historic vindication, but
spatially constrains them from any other possibility. At the pinnacle of power, the silent
scream for settling the past would not be due to the subjection of his self to another, nor
the inevitability of death, nor the identity of the crew. With regard to the White Whale, it
is vulnerability in a failed personal past that drives him.
Philoctetes wound eventually comes to serve as a trope for slavery,
colonization, and misdirection (Jay). In suffering extended physical and emotional
pain derived from the chained ankles/of his grandfathers (Walcott, 19), his abuses
transform themselves to violent explosions of anger. Turning what was initially a hatred
for traditional anonymity and his own lack of claim to an identity within the hybridized
Caribbean becomes a base historical critique, when cocks surprise their arseholes / by
shitting eggs, [] black people go get rest / from God. This animosity grows to
encompass not only other objects and people, but also the island itself, hack[ing] every
root at the heel. Detest, to violence, to disenchantment, Philoctete relates both his
history and himself to pigs that rooted in [that villages] burning garbage(Walcott, 21).
The narrator alludes to the dehumanizing effect of Caribbean history and Philoctetes
wound through his destruction, not only of the world, but abject rationality.
Human rationalism employs the idea of absolute empirical analysis as truth, and
the consideration of all possibilities in its determination. Among the common people, the
Captain is spoken of like a myth, a grand, ungodly, god-like man, desperate moody,
and savage sometimes, but blasted if he be, Ahab has his humanities!(Melville, 8586). Demi-god in being, Ahabs presence aboard the ship is inspirational and humble,
even humorous. However, Ahabs de-evolution of moral character from stoic captain to
a deranged fiend begins at the separation of his soul.
Like Philoctete, Ahab lost his spiritual completeness at the inception of the
wound. The White Whale, like the devil himself, that intangible malignity which has

been from the beginning (Melville, 195), in stealing a portion of Ahabs true identity, the
disconnected state of his soul leaves him strained, half-stranded(Melville, 601). It is this
defacement of soul, the loss of his spiritual being to the torment of the whale that
warrants Ahabs march.
*
*
*
In his paraphrase of Bentez-Rojo, Jay writes, The Caribbean has no circle or
circumference but is in fact a chaotic assimilation African, European, Indoamerican,
and Asian contexts(32). The trope of Philoctetes wound expands its implication on a
global scale, unifying the social web of Omeros Ahabs wound builds an existentialist
frame. O head! Thou has seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of
Abraham, and not one syllable is thine! (Melville, 333), Ahabs mockery of a butchered
whale begins his souls separation from religious history. This denunciation of gods then
extends to Queequegs tribal religion, as a devilish tantalization of the gods!(Melville,
514), and, in one final blow, Ahab rids himself of Christianity. However complete this
religious purification, Ahab has not resolved his suffering. Instead, Moby Dicks share in
his religious history creates a new dialectic, between Ahab the man, and Ahab the beast.
Ahabs sacrilegious transformation, his zeal and monomania in settling the scores, not
only awes the crew, but also unsteadies them; as Ahabs servitude towards his own
ruthless fervor grows, he reveals a myopic, destructive teleology.
Due to the duplicitous nature between these wounds, I understand Walcott to be
writing in opposition to Captain Ahabs emphasis on personal tradition, and its false selfassured perpetuation. While Melville exposes an oppressive role of tradition, as Paul Jay
suggests, Philoctetes wound is (l)inked [] to Philoctete, Plunkett, and [the narrator].
United under tremendous burden(Jay) their shared histories, these traditions, are
unbearable oppressors. They are reflections of the steadfast Western Literary Tradition.

II. The Narrative of Prophetic Voices

However, the positions of Philoctete and Ahab Walcott and Melville within
the tradition, as skeptical subordinate and loyal servant, delineate the purpose of their
historical pursuits. Philoctete does not seek to understand what the tradition is, but rather
what the tradition inherently imparts and why it affects his life in a way that has no
cure? (Walcott, 19). On the other hand, Ahabs role plays two parts: Leader and led. In
his servitude to pursuing tradition and history the hunt of Moby Dick Ahabs tradition
implies the pursuing of convention, itself. In this cyclic self-perpetuation, the question
remains, why serve? As the Captain of the Pequod, however, he extends the life of that
tradition by engendering it on his crew, this is what ye have shipped for, men! to
chase that white whale on both sides of land, and over all sides of earth Aye, aye!
shouted the harpooners (Melville, 173). In truth, all three of these environmentally
forced positions the crew, Philoctete, and Ahab share the same wound.

as Indian summer raced the cloud-galloping plain,

when their dust would blow like maize from the furrowed
shelves,
which the hawks prophesied to mice cowering in grain.
--(Walcott, 177)
Walcott and Melville depict muddled worlds where traditions force bondage and
partisanship. While the wound is the painful recognition of servitude to distorted
traditions, the true suffering remains when the wound is concealed. Within this dystopian
state, men cower like mice, rapaciously consuming the past (dust) as a staple for
comfort (maize). Communities, made blind and powerless to deceptive traditions, need
hermetic prophets to preach a new practice. Whether strangers to a land, as separate from
historys parochial chains as birds, from whence come those clouds of spiritual
wonderment(Melville, 201), or neighbors, transformed through a cathartic suffering, it is
the prophets responsibility to avert sufferings stasis. While the prophets of Melville and
Walcott emerge from the same fundamental elements, the failure or success of these
prophets in guiding the wounded, as I will argue, depends on the legitimacy of their
search for reconciliation.
Establishing reasons to pursue Moby Dick, considering the prospects proclivity
to disaster, would prove a very difficult mission for most. While Logic would say, the
chase, all things equal, even with a sane leader, would be illogical, to understanding the
distinction between logical and illogical requires ironically logic.
It would not have been difficult for the crew to put an end to Ahabs terrifying
pursuit. On one given opportunity to kill Ahab, Starbuck recognizes that if this ship
come to any harm through Ahabs blind vengeance, it would make [Ahab] the willful
murderer of thirty men and more (Melville, 548-549). However, at the moment of
catharsis, Starbuck seemed wrestling with an angel, but[] left the place(550).
Starbucks forfeit of transcendence is echoed by the crews willing subordination to
lunacy. Having vowd they vow; saysst all of [them] Ahabs (549), the crew have
relinquished (contractually, for the sake of argument) their free will.
Ascendance from Ahabs doom, however, is still possible. While the crew has
fallen into submission to Ahabs tradition of power-thirsty destruction, there is still a
potential for prophets among the Pequod. Pip and Queequeg seen by the crew in the
light of their soulless constitutions serve to find deliverance in the same prophetic the
same life-threatening closeness to death that brought Ahab to his pathological quest. Pip
jumped out of cowardice into the ocean, though while abandoned in the water, (t)he sea
had jeeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul[] The
separation of Pips soul, creating a likeness to Ahab, foreshadows, the death of all that
jumped from a whale-boat(Melville, 513). Queequeg, however, expressing faith, logic,
and reason in action, braves shark infested water to save a crew member. This self-less
act the deck of ignobility, rewarded him with Queequegs conceit, immortality in peace
(513).
Fedallahs efforts to dissuade Ahab depend on the acceptance of prophetic visions.
Ahab, tied to his tradition of Godliness and destruction, transforms Fedallahs warnings
of death into encouragement. In part, however, this is due again to the subservient nature
of the crew: noting their mutual demise, Though it come to the last, I shall go before

thee thy pilot (Melville, 532), the Persian Fadallah vows to serve the captain, even in his
foreshadowed death.
Like Ahabs chase after Moby Dick, a forced interaction with the source of
hewing oppression, Achilles departs on an exodus from his homeland to pursue the past.
This venture, however, does not carry the weight of violence. In order to understand his
past and find his true name, rather than engage in an argumentative dialogue, Achille
aims only to understand the history of its tribal tradition through the lens of his modern
roots. Making his journey back across the Middle Passage, Achille retraces his history
across the water accompanied by his canoe, In God We Troust. Carrying that phrase, he
carries with him the Creole, the Catholic, and the European past, all pre-, present, and
post- colonial history.
This syncretic build of experience is all-inclusive, as ubiquitous and clear as
Queequegs understanding of the world, even though it is never recognized. Achilles
prophetic dialogue with Philoctete and the wound comes when he takes part in the rituals
of his ancestors. In the form of a vision: [The ancestors] brewed a beer/ but the
moment Achille wet/his memory with it, tears stung his eyes. The taste/ showed him
Philoctete standing in green seawater (Walcott, 141). While this is the call, the response
comes from Seven Seas, and informing Philoctete to Achilles return.
While reason and unity exist in communication, all three of Ahabs sibyls fail due
to indignant reasoning and separation. Death-by-hanging, a criminal punishment withheld
for use on Africans, becomes a route for Ahab to laugh at the morbid prospect. Ahab, as
white the Captain of a ship, unable to be hanged for the vengeance of a whale, negated
Fedallahs suspicions, stating that, if anything, Ahab was immortal on land and on sea!
These deeply rooted racisms, however, are caustic not only to the targeted sailors. More
importantly, they form the heart Walcotts critique of Literary Tradition

III. Two Roads Diverged

In time the slave surrendered to amnesia. That amnesia is
the true history of the New World. That is our inheritance.
--(Walcott, The Muse of History)
The penultimate step in the cure of a shared wound, is deciding how to engage,
not with the tradition itself, but with the caretaker of that practice. In understanding the
potential for a new, integrated, World Literary Tradition, Walcott dictates two paths, the
isolationist, and the interactive. The ways in which these play against Paul Jays
conclusion are fundamental to Walcotts nuanced disagreements and hope for Caribbean
and Third-World Literatures having a shared equality with Western Literature.
Philoctetes release from his dialectic prison makes two major leaps within the
poem: the first, a short time after Achille begins his voyage into Africa, is the moment of
personal reconciliation:

[]
and the blue sea burst his heart again and again
as Philoctete sat, with the pamphlets in his lap,
watching the island filing backwards through the pane
of his wound and the window[]
He was her footman. It was her burden he bore.
Why couldnt they love the place, same way, together,
the way he always loved her, even with his sore?
Love Helen like a wife in good and bad weather,
in sickness and in health, its beauty in being poor?
The way the leaves loved her, not like the pink leaflet
printed with slogans of black people fighting war?
--(Omeros, 108)
This poem, however, offers two interpretations:
In order to understand where Paul Jay stands on Omeros, this section must be
understood void of a prophetic revelation. Paul Jays belief is that Walcotts cure for the
Caribbeans insistence on colonial oppression the wound turns its focus towards the
necessity of being grounded, in place and procedure, to make the most of the present
(Jay). Philoctetes reinterpretation of the wound as not just love, but his love, makes it
appear to engage in adoration. However, as Philoctete woefully reconciles the invariable
imperfections of the present: the distant flower, whos cure is not here; the bursting heart,
flooding into the ocean; the island filling, through the pane / of his wound and the
window, out onto sand. He has submitted to the island everything, and yet the anchors
wound runs deep; its pain is as unpredictable as the tide, as unreliable as the present, and
as he swells up and down, the anchor is always chained to Philoctetes boat. That tension,
timeless, can never be lost As the hawk above, what point is it to be tied to a mast(?),
capped and hooded, up there(?) allowed no more than to feel the sensation of love about
you? Why resign yourself to stasis, when the traditions need so much change? These
illogical actions impart a sense of failure, and an acceptance of that failure, not just
within your heart, but out on the island, and into the ocean, for the world to see.
The second interpretation, and what I believe Walcott would agree with by saying:
The truly tough aesthetic of the New World neither explains
nor forgives history. It refuses to recognize it as a creative
or culpable force
---(Walcott, The Muse of History)
Because of the shared wound of colonialism in the Caribbean, those who suffer
the journey towards catharsis not only advance their own prophetic voices, but also the
voice of all those who share in the web of a past. The Narrator, in consideration of the
state of Philoctete, reflects an experience of solitude. Within that deep vast oneness,
Philoctete finds a common unity under the yoke of oppression, Why couldnt they love
the place, same way, together the way his leaves loved her, not like the pink

leaflet(108). Love for the island and the woman are not solid in form. Rather, the
leaves love, like Philoctetes, is towards the woman her burden [they] bore(Walcott,
108). This metaphorical vision of a tree, connecting to every branch, connecting to every
leaf, would hold up the love of the woman. This woman, island, Helen, Troy whatever
allegory you like lives like a comforting spirit, the shared-spirit of St. Lucia.
That spirit is here, on this island that Achille will soon return to. The reuniting of
Achille and Philoctete Achilles awareness of the past and the pasts future, the now;
Philoctete knowing the shared essence, the arc of the trees and spirit, between the present
and future of the island the wound, now, is healed. This healing process is one of
obtaining legitimacy, to have the roots of a national literature and language hold the same
respect as the colonial, the oppressor. Without equality in legitimacy, the symbolic
coming to terms with slavery, the cure of Philoctetes wound is one of reconciliation with
the past, without progressive action. This simple solution to a wound of history could
come in the style of Melville. Ahabs obsession with his proclivity to run wild and hunt
Moby Dick was a destructive teleological pursuit there are two outcomes to this cyclic
tradition Death of Ahab, or death of the Whale. Thus, in the tradition of upholding
tradition, constantly pursuing the pursuit in its sole perpetuation, anchors you in the
present because of your past. This dreadful traditionalist existence would lead to the
stagnation of history in tradition, and none would be the wiser.
IV. A New World Literary Tradition
I want to disagree with Paul Jays conclusion to mimicry in Omeros, stating that
mimicking Western Cannon what is arguably considered the Worlds Great Literary
tradition as a whole is central to appropriation and invention, eventually leading to the
formation of a Caribbean identity (Jay). I find this to be extraordinarily narrow minded in
its assumption that there would be no literary tradition in the Caribbean were there not to
have been a colonial presence. Rather, in Walcotts appropriation of Moby Dick, what
he is trying to establish is a mockery of that view. By building an unaggressive argument
against literary fascism, Walcott is able to engage traditionalist literary views without
offending the heavily European, white-washed view of literary legitimacy.
While prisoner to his own tradition, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to
me. Sometimes I think theres naught beyond (Melville, 174), Ahab is not only unable
to broaden his understanding of the world, but doesnt see reason in the search for any
reality separate from the whiteness in front of him. Considering one of Walcotts direct
references to Herman Melville, I knew I was different/from them as our skins were
different in an empire that boasted (Walcott, 185), Ahabs refusal to extend notice to
truth beyond the white whale reflects the Imperial Gaze of Traditional Literature, and in
that tradition, the pursuit of replicating and renewing due to blind acceptance of its
practice.
Walcott is trying to show that Western Literary Tradition needs to broaden its field
of engagement, and rather than stubbornly discrediting innovation, it must engage with its
literary neighbors. The interweaving of separate traditions is fundamental to the cure in
Omeros, and is necessary for the evincing of change. Therefore, the solution to legitimize
Caribbean Literature cannot be approached from one point in time, or place. As an

identity that is disposed of its legitimacy from abroad, the Caribbean cure that Walcott
would believe vital to the Caribbean identity, literature, and legitimacy, would be to
interact and amend the backwards thoughts of The Worlds Literary Tradition.
While Jay believes this mimicry to be appropriation, I see it as Walcott method of
engagement, as subtle, rather than aggressive. The failure of aggressive revolution, he
clearly states:
the New World owes them more than it does those who
wrestle with that past, for their veneration subtilizes an
arrogance which is tougher than violent rejection. They
know that by openly fighting tradition we perpetuate it
--(Walcott, The Muse of History)
The prophetic voice that emanates between the characters is calm. It relates the
solitary engagements of Achille, Plunkett, the Narrator, and Philoctete together without
forming dialectics or hostilities. Omeros overall, is a story of ceasing hostilities and
relating apposing ideas. It is the Narrators job, in attempting to understand the history of
the island, to tie together unique experiences experiences of the West, of Africa, and St.
Lucia, past, present, and future and in similar way, Walcott is attempting to do the
same.
One critique of Caribbean literature has been the question: who is the Caribbean
Shakespeare? In response is usually: why do we need one? If not, names like Aime
Csaire, David Dabydeen, or Derek Walcott emerge. However, I dont believe that what
Walcotts aim in the writing of Omeros was to mimic for stylistic purpose, or to be known
as the Caribbean Shakespeare. Rather, in creating a tale of equality among diverse
traditions, in attempting to engage on friendly terms the oppressive literary histories of
the past, Walcott is hoping to form a new cooperative global literature. This union would
not be to homogenize, as Jay believes, but to innovate, and break old traditions.
In holding onto strict limitations of quality and legitimacy, the practice of
literature is held back. With the anchor of tradition rooted in the ocean, the ship of literary
practice can not progress. Rather that anchor must be carried along the way, referenced,
but not depended upon. In this way, what is the idea of a Shakespeare or a Homer in
every literary tradition? Do they legitimize or add to the practice? Does the world learn
anything new from them? In response to that traditionalist sly, Walcott would disagree
with those who say: why do we need one? While it is true that to be proud of tradition
and to be legitimate should not require conformity to Western Literature. However, I
believe Walcotts response would be: why do we want one? This is not the Caribbean
people, not Third World cultures, but we as in the global literary community. Why would
we want to imitate a tradition that has lasted centuries? Walcott isnt struggling with the
identity of the Caribbean people, he is attempting to comprehend the possibility for a web
of discussion between authors and poets of every community who live under the shared
arc of literary past, present, and future.

Works Cited:
Walcott, Derek. Omeros. Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux: New York. 1990.
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick; or, The Whale. London Constable & Co. 1922
Walcott, Derek. What the Twilight Says.The Muse of History. Farrar, Strauss, and Girous: New York.
1974.
Jay, Paul. Fated to Unoriginality: the Politics of Mimicry in Derek Walcotts Omeros. Callaloo, Vol.
29, No. 2 (Summer. 2006). pp. 545-559.