The Womb (Metaphor)
Speaking to Mother during the prologue, the Bolom says, "This is the shriek/Of a child which was strangled,/Who never saw the earth light/Through the hinge of the womb." Conventional understandings of pregnancy often depict women as a vessel in which a baby grows. Here, the woman is instead a door through which life moves. Both metaphors are fundamentally misogynistic, in that they reduce a woman to a tool for reproduction. However, the metaphors are different in what they suggest about life. In the woman-as-vessel metaphor, the fetus emerges from nowhere. By instead describing the womb as a hinge, Walcott suggests that there is another world on the other side of birth: the world of immortality where the fetus resides before it chooses life.
The Strength of Ancestors (Simile)
Gros Jean compares his arm to an iron tool. In response, his mother says, "Your grandfather, your father,/Their muscles like brown rivers.” This simile suggests that they are even stronger than him, as a river can shape a whole landscape, while an iron tool can only touch the surface of the earth. At the same time, the specific comparison to the river also suggests that Mother has a more holistic understanding of strength than Gros Jean. Rather than limiting strength to humans, she can easily see the similarities between humans and other beings and things on earth.
The Earth as Corpse (Metaphor)
The old man says this early in his conversation with Gros Jean, to distract the oldest brother from his cloven foot. This bleak metaphor reveals a lot about the old man’s view of the world. He perceives the earth itself as a rotting corpse. As he approaches his own death, he is unable to see that the beauty of the earth will outlast him. Instead, he imagines that the world is dying with him, which prevents him from feeling any hope. The firefly’s song during Mother’s death argues the opposite perspective: the beings that live on earth die, but the earth itself continues on.
Worked Like the Devil (Simile)
Telling Gros Jean about the planter, the old man says, "Some poor souls going to work for the white planter. He'll work you like the devil, but that's what you want.” Usually, this simile compares work on earth to the way the Devil forces damned souls to work in hell. Here, of course, the old man is using this phrase literally: the planter is the Devil. By rendering this simile literal, Walcott suggests that there really is something satanic about the way slaveowners like the planter force their slaves to work.
The Devil and the Face of God (Simile)
When the planter takes his mask off, revealing the face of the Devil, Ti-Jean says "Cover your face, the wrinkled face of wisdom,/Twisted with memory of human pain,/Is easier to bear; this is like looking/At the blinding gaze of God.” By contrasting the blinding face of the Devil with the old man’s mask, Ti-Jean suggests that immortality, rather than evil, is what determines the Devil’s appearance. The old man’s mask is easier to look at because it is “wrinkled” and “twisted with memory of human pain.” In other words, it shows the signs of mortality. Even the worst of mortality is easier to bear than the blinding impossibility of immortality.
