The Great House (Symbol)
In “Ruins of a Great House,” the great house symbolizes the British Empire, as well as the English canon. This symbol suggests that both empire and canon are in a state of decay. At the same time, both have written themselves onto the land of St. Lucia, and their ruins continue to inform the poet’s relationship to writing and homeland.
The Ship (Allegory)
In “Map of the New World,” Walcott allegorizes the process of finding a poetic identity as a ship setting out to sea. At first, merely beginning to write sets the ship afloat in rain and mist. Lost at sea, the ship cannot find the islands, and even struggles to remember that islands exist. Eventually, however, the ship is able to secretly find its way back to shore, concealed by the loud sound of the waves. In this allegory, the sea represents the history of English literature. These stories are easy to get lost in as a colonized poet, but their loudness also makes it possible to secretly navigate home and write subversive work that criticizes colonial power.
Decay and Ruin (Motif)
Several Derek Walcott poems dwell on imagery of decay and ruin. In “Ruins of a Great House,” the smell of rotting lime forms the backdrop to the poem, and parallels the metaphorical decay of the British Empire. This image is also suggested in the second part of “Becune Point,” which describes “crumbling towers, banners and domes.” Again Walcott associates images of physical decay with the fall of empire.
Work (Motif)
In “Names,” Walcott refers to “The goldsmith from Benares, / the stone-cutter from Canton, / the bronzesmith from Benin.” By identifying each ancestor by their profession, Walcott suggests that work is integral to identity. Furthermore, he elevates specifically manual labor that creates objects. The combination of hard work and craft recurs in “Map of the New World,” where Walcott groups poetry with manual labor: “Epic / follows the plough, metre the ring of the anvil.” The motif of work thus extends to Walcott’s version of poetic making, which he suggests is another way of combining craft and difficult labor.
The Sky (Motif)
The sky is the central image of “Becune Point.” Walcott describes the blue sky over St. Lucia as beautifully empty, an emptiness that he juxtaposes against the business of representative art and Western architecture. Similarly, “Names” ends with the sky seen through a decolonized gaze; the Western speaker demands that the children identify the constellations Orion and Betelgeuse, which both derive from Greek and Roman mythology, but they instead see “fireflies caught in molasses.” In both poems, the sky escapes and transcends Western ways of understanding beauty.
