Affliction, Deprivation, and Self-Esteem

Walcott mentions early in Omeros that "affliction is one theme of this work." Philoctete already has the seemingly incurable wound on his shin, and Major Dennis Plunkett has sustained his head injury. Walcott makes it clear, however, that this theme operates on a figurative level as well. Philoctete, for example, traces the persistence of his open sore to the chains shackling his enslaved grandfathers. The Major is tormented by his feelings that, like the history and people of his adopted colonial home, unfairly pushed to the margins of history, his own name and fame will die with him because he has no heir. Achille's afflictions include both the pain in his heart over his loss of Helen and the amnesia he suffers in having been cut off from his cultural roots. Recognizing the dimensions of such wounds, it follows that the cures must be necessarily...