Hegemony and Identity
On several levels, Omeros presents the strategies by which human beings survive and assert their integrity in spite of the restraints of overwhelming hegemonic forces. Walcott's peasant fishermen of Gros Ilet suffer neglect and shame due to the fact that imperial power has deprived them of their ancestral culture. Expatriate residents of St. Lucia Dennis Plunkett and Maud Plunkett must learn to accommodate themselves to existence in a colony that has been relegated to the margins of history. In a reversal of the standard paternalistic relationship between metropolis and colony, Walcott introduces several father-son combinations that are liberating and mutually beneficial. Last, the author uses vestiges of the epic literary tradition to assert a basis for self-esteem, even heroism, among his dispossessed people, while he simultaneously challenges the very artistic form through which.....
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