All 16 entries tagged Tourism

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June 06, 2008

rites like crabs

These were the rites […] like crabs (1.VI.i).

Imagery of struggle and division, depicted with the images of 'divid[ing] the wrestlers' and men as 'centaurs',  suggests the difficulties that the natives of St Lucia face when conforming to the needs of tourists, while maintaining ownership of their island. The island is in a constant struggle against the infiltration of Western colonization.


Amanda Hopkins : 06 Jun 2008 14:39 |  Tags:        |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem

June 05, 2008

totem

totem (2.XXXI.ii).

A natural object assumed as the emblem for a family, clan &c., especially within Indian tribes. Here its discovery by Achille mirrors his journey of discovery into his own past and the reader’s accumulating knowledge of the island’s history. Totems were sometimes painted on a grave, but here the 'disturbed grave' is probably metaphorical. The fact that 'A thousand archaeologists started screaming/as Achille wrenched out the totem…' illustrates not only the tensions between the island’s inhabitants and the impositions of Westernised tourism, but also links in with the theme of being uprooted.


Amanda Hopkins : 05 Jun 2008 13:28 |  Tags:           |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem

July 09, 2007

people interfering with nature

"somewhere people interfering/with the course of nature" (7.LX.i).

A reference to Dido's attempted sabotage of Aeneas' voyage in Aeneid 4. Walcott recasts Dido's all-consuming fury and calls on the gods to create a storm as a capitalist desire to crush Achille and the 'little man', seen later in Achille's anger at the trawlers.


Amanda Hopkins : 09 Jul 2007 13:48 |  Tags:       |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem

click of a Cyclops

the scream of a warrior losing his only soul/to the click of a Cyclops, the eye of its globing lens (1.59.iii).

The single lens of the camera is likened to the single eye of the Cyclops (Polyphemos) from Odyssey 9 (cf. 'taking/his soul with their cameras', 1.I.i).


Amanda Hopkins : 09 Jul 2007 13:43 |  Tags:       |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem

hotel

hotel (7.LVII.i).

St Lucia itself is represented as a hotel, as tourism has appropriated the coastline.


Amanda Hopkins : 09 Jul 2007 13:17 |  Tags:     |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem

July 06, 2007

credit–card

the gold sea//flat as a credit-card (6.XLV.ii).

Significantly, through this image Walcott attempts to unite the tourist and largely capitalist world with the natural beauty of St Lucia, suggesting the two have to be compatible if the island is to survive. The chip of the credit-card serves to evoke the glimmering of the sun's rays on the sea. This image, however, is ambivalent as a credit-card has limitations in that it is only meant to be a temporary safe-guard, which is itself often abused. This limitation extends to the beauty of the island itself as it can only withstand so much destruction.


Amanda Hopkins : 06 Jul 2007 15:47 |  Tags:    |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem

their poverty my paradise

Hadn't I made their poverty my paradise? (6.XLV.ii).

Walcott overtly subverts the concept of 'paradise' through the antithetical image of 'poverty' as the two states are polarized; paradise represents an incessant natural supply and self-sufficiency, whilst poverty counters this. This can be seen as a reference to the apparent corruption of the island through tourism, which paradoxically has impoverished the soul of the island.


Amanda Hopkins : 06 Jul 2007 15:44 |  Tags:    |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem

concrete future

a concrete/future ahead of it all (6.XLV.ii).

This image refers to the development of the island as a tourist destination threatening its traditional roots. This can be seen as an example of prolepsis: Walcott is making a prophecy. This forms part of the ongoing tension between construction and deconstruction as the 'afterglow of empire' requires dismantling if the island is to grow in national self-hood.


Amanda Hopkins : 06 Jul 2007 15:41 |  Tags:       |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem

June 28, 2007

the title he gave his transport

the title he gave his transport (2.XXI.i).

Achille is here seen experiencing a premonition of the downfall of his friend through the movement of the stars above St Lucia. This mirrors the repeated instances of prediction in Homeric epic, for example when Teirisias the prophet of the Underworld predicts a solitary and difficult homecoming for Odysseus should his men eat the cattle of Helios (Odyssey 6:104-117). Foreboding and signs of the future in Homeric epic also often focus upon the skies, but rather than stars they are often told using thunderclaps, the movement of birds etc., for example an eagle is sent by Zeus in Iliad 8: 247-9. In Homeric epic auguries in the sky are sent by the gods to convey an omen to mortals. In Omeros, Achille notes the speedy and inexorable fall of a star (the star's end is wholly unavoidable, as by the time the movement of its light has reached Achille in St Lucia, the star has of course already fallen millions of light years away in space) and, connecting it to the name of Hector's car (the 'sixteen-seater passenger-van' which we will be told about in 2.XXII), 'he trembled'. Achille clearly recognises that in his change of transport, Hector has exchanged the traditional St Lucian way of life, represented by fishing and canoes, for modernity and a newer, westernised lifestyle and set of values. In doing so he has sealed his doom. Just as Hektor's fate is sealed from the beginning of Homer's Iliad, and made more certain by Patroklos' death, so is Walcott's Hector doomed after his purchase of the Comet. Achille expresses the inevitability of Hector's downfall through the simile of the last spark of light in a dying fire hissing out and the image of the falling star. Both presage Hector's death which will occur whilst driving his Comet (6, XLIV).


Amanda Hopkins : 28 Jun 2007 15:59 |  Tags:             |  Comments (1) |  Report a problem

Yankee–cool–Creole

Yankee-cool-Creole (2.XXII.i).

This displays Americanisation of the language as a metaphor for the westernising and changing of the island.


Amanda Hopkins : 28 Jun 2007 15:47 |  Tags:      |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem

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