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Derek WalcottA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
In “Sabbaths, W.I.,” Walcott gives the reader a sense of what it’s like to live in the West Indies through details about the environment and the people who live in it. He evokes landscape through descriptions of the land and sea. The island has “volcanoes like ashen roses” (Line 3). This simile compares something the reader might not have seen, volcanoes, to something they are likely to have seen: roses. One has to travel to specific locales, like the West Indies, to see volcanoes, whereas roses can be seen on bushes and in flower shops around the world. In the West Indies, there are many places where the land and sea interact. For instance, Walcott describes “gommiers peeling from sunburn still wrestling to escape the sea” (Line 11). Gommier refers to a kind of tree that grows in the Caribbean. The tree’s bark can peel like sunburn, and it grows near the sea. There is also a boat named after the gommier and made from its wood. This second meaning adds a human element—the humans that created the boat—to the sea.
Walcott also evokes setting through his descriptions of the local flora and fauna. The poem is filled with trees, including banana trees, cocoa trees, and sea almond trees. There are also other kinds of plants, including nettles and ferns. Walcott focuses on the plants that are indigenous to the West Indies to explain its local character. The animals he includes—such as crabs, herons, and moths—are also indigenous to the region. The animals that people are less likely to be familiar with can be compared to the volcanoes. Many people will never see a “dead lizard turning blue as stone” (Line 12). Lizards can’t survive in all climates, but tend to live in tropical areas. There is even a type of lizard that is unique to the place where Walcott is from: The Saint Lucian anole. Walcott compares lizards and blue stones, with blue stones being found in more climates than lizards. Blue stones correlate with the roses that Walcott uses to describe volcanoes—both stones and roses are more common than the things they are compared with.
In the Antioch Review, Shara McCallum argues that Walcott’s “poems invoke the flora and fauna of this region not for decorative purpose or for easy identification with a Romantic self but, rather, to render them symbols of the Caribbean experience” (McCallum, Shara. Antioch Review. Winter 2009, p. 24). For Walcott, the animals and plants of the West Indies are as important as the human residents. Walcott even compares herons to “spinsters” (Line 23), or old women, which develops the connection between the people and their environment. At the beginning of the poem, Walcott describes a dog that sleeps on the streets before describing the boys that walk along the streets. Specific individuals, like the speaker’s mother, are not described until the second to last stanza. The sense of place offered in the poem is an understanding of the environment as much as an understanding of the people who live in it.
The humans that Walcott describes are molded by the religion of the region. According to Patricia Ismond, in the October 1986 issue of the Journal of West Indian Literature, “Walcott’s work reflects the several, complex facets of religion in St. Lucia” (Ismond, Patricia. Journal of West Indian Literature. October 1986, p. 69). In addition to Walcott’s title referencing the day of prayer, the sabbath, he introduces the day of the sabbath as “the melancholia of Sunday” (Line 1). The term melancholia can be read as a reference to the archaic sin of melancholy or despair. Extreme existential dread is considered sinful in Catholicism because it rejects the compassion of God. Abandoning hope is seen as a lack of faith in God (“What is the Unforgivable Sin That Our Lord Warned Us About?” National Catholic Register).
People in the West Indies fall into despair because of the “incurable sore / of poverty” (Lines 3-4). The image of an incurable sore can reference the stigmata, which are wounds or marks that resemble the injuries Jesus received during the crucifixion on his hands and feet. Walcott compares this type of injury with the inescapable poverty experienced by people living in the West Indies.
The imagery of ash and roses also references Catholicism. Walcott compares volcanoes with “ashen roses” (Line 3). Ashes are associated with Ash Wednesday, a Catholic holiday when worshipers are anointed with ashes on their forehead. Ashes are also associated with mortality in the phrase “ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” which comes from the Book of Common Prayer, specifically in prayers to be said at burials (“The Burial of the Dead: Rite One. bcponline.org). Volcanic power can be compared with divine power, in that Catholics define natural disasters as acts of God. Additionally, Walcott points out that St. Lucian boys are “selling yellow sulphur stone” (Line 5). Sulfur is also called brimstone and refers to divine punishment. Hell supposedly smells like sulfur, which is the scent of bad eggs.
Finally, Walcott references Catholic nuns. He describes how “the sisters gathered like white moths / round their street lantern” (Lines 29-30). Traditionally, nuns wear specific black and white clothing, with whiteness associated with their abstinence from sex. In Saint Lucia, where Walcott is from, there are institutions of nuns, such as the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother, Benedictine Nuns, and St. Joseph’s Convent. In “Sabbaths, W.I.” Walcott includes diverse images of Catholicism, including the people who practice it, the prayers that it includes, the times at which those prayers are said, and other religious matters like sin and stigmata. This connection between humans and the divine further develops the sense of place.
By Derek Walcott