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One role that a work of art can play is to provide, symbolically, a sense of community cohesion, a form of social healing after a time of stress. The work of art may raise underlying concern about where the society is going or the resolution of change. This process need not be addressed directly. It is perhaps all the more effective if the issues are approached indirectly. Raybin, for example explains the role in the following way:
Dealing in metaphors, art condenses disparate concepts or ideas into 'a single symbol of complex vital and emotive import' which if an observer accepts it, allows for new and wider perceptions and understandings of how the things of the world fit together (Raybin,1984, p. 26).
The social anthropologist Victor Turner's study of what he called 'comparative symbology' provides a useful way of uniting a discussion of social change and the symbolic role of Walcott's Omeros. Turner identified certain patterns which a society in conflict experiences. Essentially, he argued that societies which experience severe conflict pass through four phases. These include the initial breach of norm governed social relations followed by a phase of mounting crisis in which the fundamental underpinnings of a society are seen to be challenged and so forced into the open as the focus of debate. This is followed by a stage of redressive action and finally by either reintegration or the recognition and acceptance of irreparable schism. Turner suggests that this pattern can be identified as operating across cultures irrespective of the social or geographical milieu. Symbolic action in the form of a work of art or of literature, for example, by offering new insights, can be of particular significance during the third, redressive phase of social crisis.
Turner noted "when one is studying social change, at whatever social level I would give one piece of advice, study carefully what happens in phase three, the would be redressive phase in social dramas, and ask whether the redressive machinery is capable of handling crisis so as to restore, more or less, the status quo ante, or at least to restore peace among the contending groups. Then ask, if so, how precisely? And if not, why not? It is in the redressive phase that both pragmatic techniques and symbolic action reach their fullest expression" (Turner, 1974, 40-41). As Raybin comments: "When structural modes fail, one turns to the area of what Turner calls liminal 'anti-structure'" (Raybin, 1984, p.26).
In times of stress, then, new meanings may be sought and one area in which they are sought is in the form of art or literature.
In Walcott's long poem, Omeros we enter a fictional island world that is both knowable and strange. The narrative around the characters that live there keeps us in touch with reality as we know it. However, in substantial sections of the poem, (Books 3 - 6 predominantly) we are transported with the main characters into a 'reversible world' a time of may-be, as if, and conjecture. Achille, a fisherman and one of the main characters, in his 'hallucination' is pulled in his canoe by a migrating swift on a pilgrimage to Africa. There he encounters himself as his father and experiences a slave raiding party. We also witness the hardship and dispossession of the plains Indians, the poet encounters a number of characters including his dead father and Homer. Others experience displacement in Holland, Athens and London.
In all these 'out of time' experiences we are in the world of the liminal. An understanding of liminality as an important element of ritual appears to me to be helpful in understanding the purpose of the apparently mosaic structure of this poem and some of its central concerns. What appears in the poem as strange, loosely fitting, or possibly as a bias towards displacement, is revealed through an analysis of ritual and liminality as a tightly formed structure with a clear message to society. Victor Turner has described liminality as a time of release from normal constraints. He discusses such a time as a state which "makes possible the deconstruction of the 'uninteresting' constructions of common sense... into cultural units which may then be re-constructed in novel ways. We enter the domain of the 'interesting' or 'uncommon sense'. Turner further described the liminal as a locale through which "a community of human beings sharing a tradition of ideas and customs may bend existentially back upon itself and survey its extant condition not solely in cognitive terms but also by means of tropes, metaphors, metonyms and symbolic configurations" (Turner, 1985, p. 124).
My argument is that in Omeros a powerful and effective use of ritual combines both displacement and integrative elements. For the ritual to be convincing one needs both the displacement and integrative elements of the poem Together they create a sense of unity. In passing through or experiencing the ritual process, transformations take place and opportunities are opened through which redress of crises may be possible. The ritual process will not solve the problems of the society. It provides an opportunity for learning and growth that equips both the characters who survive and ultimately the reader with the possibility of unification across diverse boundaries.
In developing this argument, I will outline the 'breach' and 'crisis' from the ground and from the perspective of the poem. Using the text, I will go on to describe why and how liminality is invoked through ritual, and finally, their role in the pursuit of healing and unification.
During the 1980s the ability of the political, legal and juridical structures to control and direct patterns of change in many Caribbean societies was severely tested. It is no revelation, for those who are familiar with the Caribbean, to observe that during this period Caribbean societies experienced highly disruptive social change. The IMF-imposed processes of structural readjustment during this period are well documented. High levels of urbanisation caused by declining export and domestic agriculture and the concentration of government, usually in a single capital, have all had negative effects for many of these island societies. The price of rapid urban growth, for example, has been the proliferation of slums, high levels of formal and informal urban unemployment, soaring crime rates, a growing drug culture and rising racial and class tensions. A symposium held in Kingston, Jamaica in 1994 under the auspices of the United Nations Development Programme observed that there was a crisis of governance in the region the dimensions of which were growing. One observer has noted that "political leaders and institutions had failed to move beyond the formal trappings and structures of liberal democracy to legitimising values such as accountability and transparency, and to putting in place 'people centered' policies and processes" (Ryan, 1996).
Within the poem considerable attention is given to the wider experiences of human suffering, the poet plainly states 'affliction is one theme/of this work, this fiction'. The poem's focus on displacement and affliction has been identified, particularly by Figueroa, who has suggested that perhaps the displacement parts outweigh the integrative parts. In the Caribbean context, Walcott is not unfamiliar with these harsh realities of the Caribbean landscape. The elements of the specifically Caribbean crisis are also an important part of the sense of displacement and crisis in the poem. Disquiet about contemporary change, displacement and crisis are identified through the separate observations of Maud Plunkett and Achille and later by the poet himself. Thus, Maud the outsider, observes:
How fast it fades! Maud thought; the enameled sky,
the gilded palms, the bars like alters of raffia,
........... One day the Mafia
will spin these islands round like roulette. What use is
Dennis's devotion when their own ministerscash in on casinos with their old excuses
of more jobs? Their future felt as sinister as
that of that ebony girl in her yellow dress."There's our trouble," Maud muttered into her glass. (Walcott, 1990, p. 29)
Also a further indication of the society's crisis is conveyed in Achille's observations of Helen's preparation for a night out. Both Helen the woman and 'Helen' the island, in their cosmetic preparations, are shown to be facing a bleak future. Achille observes as she makes her way to the blockorama:
She was selling herself like the island, without
any pain, and the village did not seem to carethat it was dying in its change, the way it whored
away a simple life that would soon disappear
while its children writhed on the sidewalks to the soundsof the DJ's fresh-water-Yankee-cool-Creole. (Walcott, 1990, p. 111)
When the author gets on board a transpo', he notes the widening gap between him and the driver in their respective pessimism and optimism about observable changes in the society. However, this causes some self-searching by the poet that he may be accused of reveling in the beauty of poverty. But he also fears that much that is unique has been lost.
........the gold seaflat as a credit-card, extending its line
to a beach that now looked just like everywhere else,
Greece or Hawaii (Walcott, 1990, p. 229)
By Book 7, the last book of the poem, a strong sensation of oneness out of affliction and diversity is achieved. An almost palpable warmth and empathy unites the villagers, Ma Kilman, Achille, Helen, Philoctete, Seven Seas and the outsider Dennis Plunkett. The reader, who is at times directly addressed or incorporated through the ubiquitous "I", is brought also to share in this deep sense of community. Boundaries of race, class, religion and diversities of affliction dissolve in an overarching "communitas". The limping Philoctete's festering wound is healed by bush medicine, the skeptical Dennis achieves a satisfactory bond with his dead wife through the obeah of Ma Kilman.
The term "communitas" is used to suggest something beyond an acceptance of diversity. It is more a sense of human spiritual unity, a recognition of "human totals", integrated beings who come to share and recognise their same fundamental humanity.
Seven Seas sighed. What was the original fault?
"Plunkett promise me a pig next Christmas. He'll heal
in time, too."
"We shall all heal"
The incurable
wound of time pierced them down the long, sharp-shadowed street. (Walcott, 1990, p. 319.)
Overall then, the poem appears to offer a shaman like healing and uniting of the disparate elements that comprise the Caribbean. How is this achieved and to what purpose? The small but important bird, the swift, and the use of ritual are central to the task. The migrating swift which "touched both worlds with her rainbow" whose speed and movement "could loop the stars with a fishline" is offered as the most profound unifying symbol of the poem. Traditionally a Christian sign, Walcott appears to use this bird far more widely as the unifying symbol in the poem across geography, religion and communities. At the beginning of the poem the swift first appears in the opening in the sky left by the laurel when the fishermen cut down the trees to make canoes. Then, in almost every important turn of event in the poem, the swift makes an appearance and often plays an important part. The swift is made to pull Achille's pirogue - "a thousand times her own weight" - to Africa; and to deposit the seed of the plant that cures Philoctete
A swift had carried the strong seed in its stomach
centuries ago from its antipodal shore, (Walcott, 1990, p. 238)
Perhaps, most importantly, the swift is identified, towards the end of the poem as uniting the poem's entire span in its migratory circle. The poet observes:
I followed a sea-swift to both sides of this text;
her hyphen stitched its seam, like the interlocking
basins of a globe in which one half fits the nextinto an equator,...
...
Her wing-beat carries these islands to Africa,
she sewed the Atlantic rift with a needle's line,
the rift in the soul. (Walcott, 1990, p. 319)
Ritual and its attendant symbolism also pervade the poem. They provide, in Turner's phrase, both a taste of transcendence and expressive belonging at the same time. Redressive rituals comprise important elements of the poem. The redressive rituals include divination in hidden causes of misfortune, personal and social conflict and illness. They may take both curative and initiatory forms.
At one level the entire poem is a redressive ritual in the context of the Caribbean crisis alluded to earlier. The curative element is displayed in Philoctete's healing. Achille's rite of passage back to Africa is another central ritual signifying his growth through death and rebirth. Before his rite begins the swift was the "last sound he knew from the other world" (p. 133). We are told that to enable his return to his island "Achille died again" though he returns triumphantly
with his heart as high as the bird whose wings wrote the word
Afolabe in the letter of the sea swift. (Walcott, 1990)
These represent common ways of expressing participation in the uncommon. In contrast, Hector's death from his transpo's crash after he gave up the sea appears as a warning of the danger of deserting one's traditions. Achille is respectful to tradition, for example in his participation and dressing up for the Boxing Day festivities. A tradition which we are told is considerably older than the Christmas time around which it is celebrated.
....something older; something that he had seen
in Africa, when his name had followed a swift,
where he had been his own father and his own son. (Walcott, 1990, p. 275)
A number of commentators have given considerable attention to the diverse currents which appear to run through this large and powerful poem. I prefer to draw attention to its concern to create unity. In the context of the failure of pragmatic political and legal/juridicial techniques to attempt to ease the crisis facing Caribbean society, Walcott appears to offer, through the symbolic action of ritual, an alternative form of redressive action for his characters and for the Caribbean as a whole. The purpose of the poem appears to be to heal and unify and to provide the opportunity to think the unlikely, a communal 'what if' for the future.
Raybin. D., 1990, Aesthetics, romance and Turner, in Kathleen M. Ashley (ed.) Victor Turner and the Construction of Cultural Criticism: Between Literature and Anthropology, Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana University Press.
Ryan S., 1995, The decline of good governance in the Anglophone Caribbean, Paper delivered at the XX Caribbean Studies Association Conference, Willemstad, Curacao, 22 - 26 May.
Turner, V., 1974, Dramas, fields and metaphors, Ithaca. Cornell University Press.
Turner V., 1969, The ritual process, Ithaca, Cornell University Press.
Turner V., 1985, On the edge of the bush, Tucson, University of Arizona Press.
© Philip Nanton, 2005.
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