The treatment of history and hybridity in the poetry of Derek Walcott

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The treatment of history and hybridity in the poetry of Derek Walcott



Derek Walcott presents the faded image of history and hybridity in his poems. In the poem "Names", Walcott raises the questions of the identity. The use of "noun" in the first stanza of the poem "Names" presents the notion of "lack of proper identity". Walcott's parental and maternal grandmothers were black and his grandfathers were white men. This is the reason behind using of "blood of both" in the poem "A far cry from Africa".

In the poem "A far cry from Africa", Walcott tries to present the bloodshed and violence between the ethnic group and the conquerors. Walcott shows the history of their culture in this poem. The notion of English language is also significant.

In the poem "Goats and Monkeys", Walcott tries to show the 'racial violence ' through the epigraph of the poem. The epigraph of this poem is taken from the play "Othello" written by Shakespeare. In this epigraph, black ram and eve are Othello, the moor and his wife Deshdemona. The two lines of the epigraph are from Act 1 scene of Othello where her father is informed by Barbantio that she is in love with a black man. In the notion of history and hybridity, Walcott tries to show the racial conflict between the white and black through the epigraph of the poem.

In the poem, "The Sea is History" Walcott tries to deconstruct the notion of the history through the black child. In this poem, white person (colonizer) asks questions to black child (native). The act of asking question and giving answer is a intellectual activity. This act also refers the idea of power of "asking question". who does ask questions? The person who has the power and who has the power to shape the knowledge asks questions. Through this point of view, Walcott presents the white man as a person has the power to shape knowledge.
"Where are your monuments?'
"Where are your martyrs?"
The questions in the poem "The sea is a history" are significant. White man asks the proof of their history as monuments or as the story of martyrs. Through these questions, Walcott tries to deconstruct the history of white man. The child says that sea is history. The water, the sea is the proof of past, history from the beginning of the world.
In the poem, white man asks to child - where is you renaissance? The renaissance was the moment when man becomes the center of the universe. Through this question, white man wants to know about the history of their ancestors. In this poem, Walcott also refers the idea of old Testament and New Testament. In the Old testament, The Genesis, the God created world and created Adam or Eve. White man asks to the black child about the Genesis then he replies him by giving the reference of slavery.
The last two lines of the poem "The sea is history" are significant because these lines insist upon the freedom of imagination. White man asks to child about the star then he says to him "fireflies". White man tries to colonize the freedom of imagination of the child but he can't.
 

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